EAHP represents over 30,000 hospital pharmacists across 37 member countries. EAHP represents and develops the hospital pharmacy profession within Europe in order to ensure the continuous improvement of care and outcomes for patients in the hospital setting. This is achieved through science, research, education, practice, as well as sharing best-practice and responsibility with other healthcare professional
The EAHP Board, elected for three-year terms, oversees the association’s activities. Comprising directors responsible for core functions, it meets regularly to implement strategic goals. Supported by EAHP staff, the Board controls finances, coordinates congress organization, and ensures compliance with statutes and codes of conduct.
The EAHP staff supports the Board in executing EAHP’s mission. The Staff assists in financial management, events organisations, policy activities and all EAHP projects. The EAHP staff works closely with EAHP’s members and ensures the effective communication all relevant stakeholders.
The first member countries were Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands in 1972. EAHP has now 36 EAHP members and 2 Associate Members. EAHP is open to countries members of the Council of Europe and since 2022 to organisations representing the interests of hospital pharmacists from outside the Council of Europe (Associate Membership)
EAHP’s structure is also composed by different standing committes: EAHP Scientific Committee, EAHP Education Executive Committee and the EAHP CTF Steering Committee.
At EAHP, we are committed to transparency in our governance, ethical standards, and funding practices. This section provides open access to our foundational documents, including the EAHP Statutes, Code of Conduct, and Funding Sources. By sharing these resources, we aim to uphold accountability and foster trust with our members, partners, and the public.
Keep up with all EAHP’s events and webinars. Contact the team at info@eahp.eu should you have any questions about upcoming events or activities.
Here you can find all upcoming events organised by EAHP and by all its members and associate members. Do not hesitate to contact the events team at events@eahp.eu should you have any questions about the organisation of these events.
Hospital pharmacists conduct a critical role in the care of patients in hospitals. Learn more about what they do here and in all the pages under Hospital Pharmacy practice and Policy.
Self-Assessment
SILCC
Closed SIGs
EAHP brings together experts from many areas of hospital pharmacy practice providing and highlighting good local sustainable practices as that can be up-scaled and shared with other countries. The EAHP Working Group on Sustainability has the aim of reducing the environmental burden of the hospital pharmacy services.
The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP), and its 36 member country platforms are creating a Common Training Framework for the hospital pharmacy education in Europe. The goal of this project is to allow the free movement of hospital pharmacists within the European Union.
The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) and the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP) have collaboratively developed the Oath to Society. The Oath to Society is all encompassing and acts as a contract for excellence in providing compassionate patient care, working as part of the healthcare team and advancing the pharmacy profession, and showcasing how clinical and hospital pharmacists work every day
A day created to highlight the importance and to celebrate the work done by hospital pharmacies. This day celebrates all hospital pharmacy teams.
Catch up with EAHP’s press releases
Find all EAHP relevant publication like the EAHP Surveys, annual reports and the history books.
The European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy (EJHP) is the only official journal of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) and is committed to advancing the science, practice and profession of hospital pharmacy. As the premier communication platform for hospital pharmacists worldwide, EJHP is a major source for continuing education as well as updates on advances in the practice and standard of pharmaceutical care for patients.
When EAHP and Hospital pharmacists appear in the news.
EAHP publishes a monthly EU monitor with updates about the latest EAHP initiatives and information relevant for the hospital pharmacy profession.
Sponsor Channel
The Sponsor Channel is designed to maximise visibility and engagement, allowing sponsors to connect with the hospital pharmacy community and partners in a dynamic and interactive environment. From product demonstrations to networking sessions, the Sponsor Channel offers a range of opportunities for sponsors to showcase their offerings and generate leads in the new EAHP Website.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
SILVIA CONDE, ÁNGEL MARCOS, JOSEP TORRENT, CLARA SALOM, LAURA CANADELL
Prior to the start of the project, inpatient treatments were not validated. The objective of this pharmaceutical care project was to improve the pharmacotherapy of the patients admitted to the hospital in terms of efficacy and safety.
We implemented a pharmaceutical care project in a 153-bed regional hospital.
The pharmaceutical care project was based on 2 main strategies. The first of them was the validation of the treatment prescribed to inpatients according to their clinical situation. We planned to validate inpatient’s treatment from Monday to Friday during working hours.
The second one was the incorporation of the clinical pharmacist to hospital’s antimicrobial stewardship program. We established 2 meetings per week with the antimicrobial stewardship group. Revisions were focused on prescriptions of broad-spectrum antibiotics for more than 48 hours, antibiotic treatments longer than 7 days and prescriptions of aminoglycosides, vancomycin, and linezolid, among others.
During the 6 first months (January-June 2021), a total of 222 pharmaceutical interventions were performed, being the most frequent:
– “Discontinue medication” (22.97%), mainly because of “Undue duration” (31.37%) and “Therapeutic duplication” (29.41%)
– “Modify dose” (31.62%)
– “Change medication” (17.12%), mainly due to “Adjustment to antibiogram” (26.32%), “Medication exchange” (18.42%) and “Inadequate medication for the clinical situation of the patient” (15.79%).
The pharmaceutical intervention acceptance rate was 81.10%.
Related to the antimicrobial stewardship program, a total of 171 revisions were performed, making any treatment advice in 51 of them (29.82%). The most frequent recommendation was to “Discontinue treatment because of undue duration” (25.49%), followed by “Adjustment to antibiogram” (15.69%), “De-escalate treatment” (11.76%) and “Increment of antibiotic dose” (11.76%). Acceptance rate was 94%.
The pharmaceutical care program allows both the early identification of possible medication errors and upgrades in inpatients’ treatment.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Andreas von Ameln-Mayerhofer, Martin Breuling, Ina Geist
In the context of antibiotic stewardship, rapid oralisation of a parenteral antibiotic is recommended in many antibiotic stewardship guidelines. Such a sequence therapy is easy to implement if both application pathways lead to comparable efficacy levels at the site of infection. However, this does not apply to all anti-infectives, in particular some beta-lactam antibiotics represent a challenge in therapy. Additionally, the information about this topic is very sparse in the literature.
In order to achieve an improvement in antimicrobial prescriptions, we have addressed possible problems regarding oralisation of antibiotics. For this purpose, we graphically compared the simulated efficacy levels of parenteral and oral forms of beta-lactams.
We programmed a computer based procedure that allows a simulation of plasma levels of antibiotics upon intravenous versus oral administration. Based on the obtained data and EUCAST-based MIC-distributions for a set of bacteria, we assessed the respective putative clinical actions.
Our simulations show that some oral beta-lactams do not reach the PK/PD condition of a sufficient therapy (fT>MHK) in the approved dosage. The simulations have been used for education seminars with physicians and partly led to an improvement in oralisation procedures. Additionally, an oralisation standard has been established.
Our next step is to develop a special prescription form for oral antibiotics which will enable us to control prescription behaviour even more effectively. We plan to monitor the prescription habits for anti-infectives more closely before and after establishing the prescription form.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Marinos Petrongonas, Maria Fragiadaki, Eleni Rinaki, Leonidas Tzimis
Implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programmes in hospitals is part of the national strategy to promote prudent use of antimicrobials. As HPs chair stewardship teams, they are responsible for assessing prescription and monitoring antimicrobial use. Designing and developing automated informative tools facilitates HPs in their role.
Hospital pharmacists (HPs) designed and developed software tools to support the antibiotic stewardship team’s work. Particular developments were: a) Α PC application (GrAD_calc), in Microsoft Excel, to calculate antimicrobial consumption, instead of ABC_calc tool. GrAD_calc takes advantage of the unique codes for each branded product and transforms aggregated data, provided by the Hospital Information System (HIS), into antibiotic consumption in DDDs/100 occupied bed-days. Results are presented in charts and figures, in a format that enables ease of comparative monitoring over time. b) Necessary indexes of the above calculator and documentation needed as justification for restricted antimicrobials dispensing have been integrated into the HIS; in result, data for national surveillance programme for antimicrobial consumption are automatically exported. Useful information for pre- and post-prescription review, like demographics, indication(s), co-morbidities, current and previous treatments, microbiology tests’ results, susceptibility reports, is available and easily accessible to prescribers, HPs, and infection disease specialists.
HPs created GrAD_calc on their own resources, while changes in HIS were made by ICT service provider, following technical specifications described by HPs. A number of technical problems have been resolved with the contribution of HPs.
• Monitoring of antimicrobial use by pharmacy is quicker and effortless. • Handwritten documentation included in restricted antimicrobials’ prescriptions has been replaced by an electronic decision support system, as tool to improve antimicrobial prescribing and stewardship. • Useful information from patient’s medical record is directly available to HPs and physicians, and facilitates hospital’s policy for assessing antimicrobial prescriptions. • Data, like indication, medicine, dosage scheme, microbiology results and susceptibility reports, are recorded electronically and update patients’ pharmaceutical records, permitting further use for pharmaco-epidemiology studies.
Next challenge is wide use of tools developed, to optimise pharmaceutical services provided and dispense restricted antibiotics only when accordingly justified. GrAD_calc is applicable in hospital setting and HIS’s tool is incorporated and can be used by all regional hospitals.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Pilar Aznarte-Padial, Lourdes Gutierrez-Zuñiga, Carmen Valencia-Soto, Sara Guijarro-Herrera, Carmen Hidalgo-Tenorio, Juan Pasquau-Liaño
Re-evaluation of empirical antimicrobial treatment, after knowledge of the microbiological results, is a practice that contributes to the proper use of antimicrobials, but the consultation of these findings by the medical prescribers may be delayed. The hospital pharmacist is an essential member of Antibiotic Stewardship programs, who can maintain an individualised monitoring of prescription and maintaining direct communication with the medical prescribers. The monitoring of the antimicrobial prescriptions and the revision of microbiological results, allows us to carry out an individualised advice to optimise the antimicrobial therapy
Pharmaceutical advices were sent from the Pharmacy Service to the prescribing doctor, through the Electronic Prescription Program (EPP) to optimize antimicrobial therapy after the microbiological results are known
From January 2015, together with daily monitoring of prescriptions of antibiotics, the results of microbiological cultures requested were consulted. We started to send warning messages from the Pharmacy Department to doctors, through EPP. Our goal was to advise in relation with microorganisms resistant to the prescribed antibiotic, microorganisms not covered and proposals of the de-escalation.
During 2015, we made 166 communications; 20 the same day of the discharge. Of the remaining 146, 46 were of de-escalation, 44 of resistant antimicrobials and 56 of non-covered microorganisms. Global acceptance was 80.1% (117/146): 80.1% of the de-escalation, 81.8% of antibiotic resistant microorganisms and 78.6% of non-covered microorganisms. The Services which received more advices were: Internal Medicine (57/146), General Surgery (38/146) and Pneumology (9/146), with an acceptance of 82.5%, 76.3% and 100.0%, respectively. The carbapenems were the most involved antibiotic group (58.9%). Ertapenem was involved in advices of non-covered microorganisms in 21.4%. The most commonly used antibiotics after the de-escalation were: fluoroquinolones (18.9%), beta-lactams with a beta-lactamase inhibitor (10.8%), fosfomycin (10.8%) and ampicillin (10.8%).
The acceptance degree obtained permits to consider this initiative as a valid strategy to optimize antibiotic prescriptions. This procedure reduces the use of restricted antibiotics, by lowering the cost of treatments and the resistance emergence.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Stephen Hughes, Katie Heard
The context, strategies, and delivery of AMS vary markedly between hospitals, largely falling within two headings, that of restriction or enablement. Restricted access to broad-spectrum antimicrobials through pharmacy and microbiology control of supply is the most common approach as requires minimal resource and implementation. This controls antimicrobial misuse but the long term benefits are less clear. The negative professional culture this restriction develops may erode inter-professional trust and delay time to first-dose, negatively impacting upon sepsis management whilst approval is sought. CDSS was used to transform the working role of the AMS team.
A real-time clinical decision support system (CDSS) has been tested and implemented for the first time in an acute NHS hospital. CDSS has enabled the service evolve from an effective restricted antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) service to a more desirable enablement service, where the team aspires to support all prescribers to take responsibility for good AMS practice
In April 2016 a commercial CDSS was introduced at a single site London teaching hospital with an established, multi-professional AMS team. A service evaluation was conducted to understand the impact of CDSS on practice. Data was collected for three months pre and post implementation, including time spent compiling data for AMS daily ward round, the number and types of ABX-related interventions made and total antimicrobial use (defined daily dose [DDD] per 100 occupied bed days [OBDs]).
Implementation of CDSS saw a transformation of the AMS service from tele-consult service from the microbiology labs to a patient-facing ward based service, through use of mobile technology. The relocation of AMS team staff resource allowed for increase ward presence and daily ward rounds on surgical, medical and admission wards. AMS interventions increased (138/quarter to 298/quarter) post-intervention. Clinician acceptance of AMS team interventions increased from 81% to 98%. High-impact interventions, such as escalation of septic patients, early discharge and ID reviews, increased on the ward based reviews. Total ABX (DDD/100OBD) reduced by 18% over study period.
The CDSS is being used to evolve the service to further support AMS practice. Patient orientated outcome data is being collected and used to drive further service improvements
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Emma Ramos Santana, Enrique Tevar Alfonso, Maria Jose Castillos Mendez, Maria Luz Padilla Salazar, Lucy Abella Vazquez, Jesus Ode Febles, Marcelino Hayek Peraza, Javier Merino Alonso
The implementation of an antimicrobial stewardship program (AMS) is very important, but it has to be accompanied by personal resources. It is therefore necessary to effectively use the time spent in the AMS.
We have worked with the Information Technology Service to develop an “Intelligent Antimicrobial Screening Program” (IASP).
Using the information available in Electronic Health Record (EHR) and in pharmacy and microbiology applications we have developed a computer tool that analyze hundreds of situations through pre-established conditions
Currently the system analyzes more than 40 conditions related to the correct use of antimicrobials based on antibiotic characteristics, patient situation and microbiological data.
Some of the most relevant conditions are:
●Antibiotic prescribed more than 6 days.
●Patient with parenteral antibiotic for more than 3 days and with other oral medicines.
●Antibiotic that must be adjusted in patients with renal impairment prescribed in patients with glomerular filtration rate (GFR)65 years old, GFR5 days prescribed or other nephrotoxic prescribed.
●Patients with linezolid and thrombocytopenia or anemia or without an hemogram in the last week.
●Patients with daptomicyn and high creatininkinase (CK) or without a recent determination.
This software allows to collect information contained in different systems and displays it in an organized view to the user. This makes it an easily system that can be exported to other hospitals.
Our next objective is to consult the microbiological information. Therefore the system will be able to recommend about the optimal antimicrobial treatment, detecting situations in which the treatment can be de-escalated or alerting in case of resistance.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Antonios Markogiannakis, Georgios Pegkas, Calliope Allagianni, Stavroula Efstathiou, Despoina Makridaki
The term of AST has been introduced in Greek legislation since 2014 and should become the driving force to optimize antimicrobial therapy, especially for the protected antibiotics (PA): carbapenems, colistin and tigecycline. Unfortunately Greece ranks first in Europe in the consumption of the mentioned PA in hospitals, consequently the activation of AST constitutes national priority. The existing law frame defines that AST consists of four key member physicians (experienced in infectious diseases) plus the hospital pharmacist as coordinator of the group. As the number of serving pharmacists in Greece remains critically low, very few hospitals have actually activated the AST. The Panhellenic Association of Hospital Pharmacists (PEFNI) decided to organize regional meetings to enhance the involvement of pharmacists by sharing the practice of experienced colleagues running antibiotic stewardship programs (ASP) in their hospitals since fall of 2016.
We have described the sequential steps for the establishment of multidisciplinary Antibiotic Stewardship Team (AST) in Greek hospitals and prepared training material to increase involvement of hospital pharmacists.
We combined the strategies and procedures implemented in the three hospitals during last year, in a flowchart presenting the establishment, activation and feedback of the AST. We have developed an ASP for hospitals, with initial target to minimize the use of PA:. Functional options in each step have been described, making it flexible for the colleagues to selectively implement them in their hospitals. We also created specific educational material to use in regional meetings that PEFNI organizes.
The application of ASP and the education of hospital pharmacists as coordinators results in: • Reliable reporting of controlled use for the PA • Safer antimicrobial management practice • Economy on restricted pharmacotherapy budgets • Acknowledgement of the critical role of pharmacists by other healthcare professionals, the hospital manager and the authorities
• The basic flowchart can be broadened to include subsequent stewardship activities such as recording proper surveillance of more classes of antibiotics, assessment of antimicrobial surgical chemoprophylaxis and/or antifungal pharmacotherapy.
• Connection of local ASP reports to a national network for all hospitals will help towards the creation of a real-time antibiotics’ consumption database in Greece.
