EAHP represents over 29,000 hospital pharmacists across 36 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 professionals.
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 of Germany 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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
Line Jarvig, Louise Konradsen Refsgaard
The medicine pickup lockers were implemented to offer patients in the outpatient clinics a more flexible and accessible way to receive their medication e.g., 24-hour access close to home.
Patients who are receiving medicine free of charge from outpatient clinics traditionally pick up the medication by face-to-face contact with the nurses in the clinic every third month. Patients, who are in remission and already well-informed about their medication are offered to receive their medication in one of seven medicine pickup lockers in the capital region of Denmark. To ensure adherence, safety and optimal outcome of treatment, the healthcare professionals carefully pick out the patients, who are suited for this method. Regular contact between the healthcare professional and the patient is also continued, primarily by using digital contacts through the EPJ-system and by telephone.
The implementation of this new direct-to-patient distribution method was carried out by the Capital Region Hospital Pharmacy in close collaboration with the region’s hospitals and outpatient departments. The implementation requires that the clinical staff rethink their practice and accept that dispensing is no longer their responsibility. Dispensing and distribution of the medication is now handled by pharmacy staff at the hospital pharmacy’s warehouse. From here the medication is transported to the requested location and the patient will receive a text message when the medicine is ready for pickup in the medicine pickup locker.
Patients find medicine pickup lockers accessible, safe, and easy to use. Importantly, the quality of medicine dispensing is increased due to hospital pharmacy staff dispensing the medicine rather than nurses. Changing the workflow so that nurses do not dispense medicine also alleviates the shortage of nurses. In addition, this method is without doubt environmentally optimal compared to the traditionally pick up method, since transportation of both patients and the medicine is decreased.
Next step will be to offer prescription pickups at private pharmacies, which can ensure that patients can pick up their medicine at several different locations around the region and make it possible for the patients to communicate any concerns to a healthcare provider.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, many patients could not attend to hospital pharmacy for medication supply. To ensure treatment effectiveness, tolerance and therapeutic adherence, we developed this new model of medication dispensing as well as additional routes of patient follow-up, such as the use of mobile Health (mHealth).
In 2024/03 we started to approach hospital medication (mainly onco-haematology oral treatments, subcutaneous monoclonal antibodies and clotting factors) to the patient’s home. We developed an alternative model of medication supply through the collaboration with community pharmacies (CPs) and a logistics partner.
The collaboration with CPs was coordinated by the Barcelona College of Pharmacists, who developed a new digital platform to manage and track delivery orders. A pharmaceutical wholesaler delivered these medications to CPs in 48–72 hours. In case of requiring a faster dispensation, we used a logistics operator which guaranteed a delivery time to the patient’s home of 24 hours.
Considering that our hospital pharmacy attends more than 8,000 patients, we prioritised this service to those with a complex socio-functional situation or who lived far from the hospital.
Pharmacy technicians were the key managers in this process. Through a telephone interview, they detected possible medication related problems (adverse effects, administration errors, inadequate dose/route of administration/duration of therapy and lack of treatment adherence). They also checked for in-person medical appointments that could justify dispensing direct to the patient. If any incident was detected, the technician referred the case to the pharmacist for further assessment and resolution.
Additionally, for some health conditions (heart transplant, colorectal and breast cancer, haematopoietic stem cell transplant, chronic migraine or HIV infection), we developed a mHealth programme in which patients were empowered by using a smartphone and tablet app to promote self-care management and contact with their healthcare professionals.
In 2020, 4,793 shipments were made to 1,814 patients. This meant 12.4% of the total hospital pharmacy dispensations (N=38,527). Of these shipments, 61.0% went to CPs and 39.0% to patients at home. In 2021, there were 4,171 shipments to 1,248 patients, 90.0% of which were sent to CF, which implies a decrease of the shipments of 12.9% compared to the previous year.
In our setting, mean time of virtual dispensing was 10 minutes versus 3 minutes of in-person dispensing. This additional time was due to the preparation of drug shipments and tracked delivery orders. The assessment of this model was positive for both patients and pharmacy staff. However, it was not exempt from some incidents, such as delivery delays or errors in package identification.
As for telepharmacy follow-up, 257 patients are using mHealth applications. In 2021, they performed 4,387 consultations with the pharmaceutical team.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to rethink the care model for outpatient care in hospital pharmacy services. Our assessment is positive and we believe that this model should continue in the future for a selected group of patients.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
PATRICIA ORTIZ FERNANDEZ, Alba Maria Martinez Soto, PILAR FERNANDEZ-VILLACAÑAS FERNANDEZ
1.Reduce the stocks of drugs in the medicine cabinets of the hospitalization units (HU). 2. Adapt scheduled drugs dispensing to those of preparation and administration at the HU. 3. Reduce the number of returns of dispensed drugs, as the main indicator of improved efficiency.
Optimize the drug distribution circuits within the hospital, adapting them to the changes produced in the organization to increase the quality and efficiency of the drug use process.
1. Constitute an improvement group (pharmacy service (PS), supervisors oh HU and nursing address.
2. Define and propose stock agreements by the PS
3. Call meetings to review the agreement and circuit of drug dispensing
4. Incorporation of agreements in the corporate program and implementation of the agreed circuit changes.
5. Publish the updated drug distribution circuit
6. Restructuring of medicine cabinets
7. Evaluation of indicators: a) Decrease types and amounts of drugs in HU. b) Decrease in drug returns of drugs to PS
A total of 6 meetings have been held, reaching the following agreements:
1. Mantain a reduced stock of drugs in the HU
2. Establishment of the medicine cabinets agreements for the 14 HU.
3. Limitation of request for medication by stock. Ant other request will be made individually for each patient.
4. Circuit changes:
a. Partial modification of the medication dispensing schedule in the unit dose dispensing system
b. Streamlining the comunication system between the pharmacy service and hospitalization units.
c. Dispatch of medication dispensed in patient transfers
d. Establishment of criteria for urgent requests
5. Written dissemination of the changes to all pharmacy and nursing staff
Quality indicators will be avaluated 6 months after implementation.
We hope to avoid ineficiencias derived from the existencce of double circuits and to optimaze the control and preservation of drugs in the HU
The establishes drugs is not static, modifications are posible.
