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.
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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ ESQUÍROZ, AMAYA ECHEVERRÍA GORRITI, Mª CONCEPCIÓN CELAYA LECEA, MARTA MARÍN MARÍN, LOREA SANZ ÁLVAREZ, PATRICIA GARCÍA GONZÁLEZ, JAVIER GORRICHO MENDIVIL, JAVIER GARJÓN PARRA.
A prescription alert system was developed in our region for the management of drugs in patients with hepatic cirrhosis.
A preliminary study made in our region showed that around one in four prescribed medications in cirrhotic patients are contraindicated or overdosed. Besides, it is estimated that around 38% of cirrhotic patients suffer any adverse effect despite approximately 70% of them are preventable.
In addition, safety problems can emerge due to the lack of data regarding drugs management in patients with cirrhosis.
For these reasons, it was essential to develop a tool that helped clinicians during the prescription process and pharmacists while pharmaceutical validation and medication review.
A computer-generated prescription alert system was developed. This system provides security data and dosing recommendations according to Child-Pugh classification of each patient. Besides, the tool suggests safer alternatives when an unsafe drug is prescribed. These recommendations were extracted from the product information and three databases: UpToDate, RxCirrhosis and Geneesmiddelen bij.
According to last laboratory data available from the electronic medical records such as bilirubin, prothrombin time and albumin, this tool estimates the Child-Pugh score, that must be completed with ascites and encephalopathy grade.
At this time, this tool is only available for clinical pharmacists for validation, and it is expected to be implemented for physicians soon.
From May to September 2024, a total of 202 drugs were included, 59 (29.2%) were considered contraindicated in some degree of cirrhosis, so it was recommended not to use. Dose adjustment was proposed in 109 (54.0%) drugs, while in 13.9% the tool recommended a safer alternative drug.
In order to complement this issue, information and training sessions were given about safe management of drugs in cirrhotic patients.
We are working in order to include safety data about more drugs in this alert system.
We hope this tool can help professionals of other regions and countries.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Anette Thomsen, Sarah Mejlvang, Maria Grønkjær
Automatic multidose Dispensing System (ADS) was implemented in April 2024 in the Hospital Pharmacy Central Denmark Region.
Before the implementation, new software functionalities were developed in the medication module (MEM) of the electronic patient record. The development included creation of new workflows in the wards and in the Pharmacy. A new functionality makes it possible for nurses and pharmaconomists at the hospitals to manually order dose-dispensed medicine (DDM) to patients who are discharged from the wards. The orders are sent from MEM to the ADS on one patient for a given time period. Medication can be ordered hourly until noon.
Medicine for 1-5 days of use can be dose-dispensed (DD) for the patients ready for discharge, which gives the following advantages:
-Improved patient safety. The transition from hospital to home now uses a concept regarding DDM that is known in the primary healthcare sector.
-Increased time for the patient to buy new medication at a local pharmacy after discharge.
-Extra time for newly added/removed drugs to be incorporated in future DDM from local pharmacies.
-Less time spent by nurses dispensing medicine for patients who are being discharged.
To support patients in the transition between hospital and home it has been important to make an easy way to order and dispense medication. Following developing tasks has been made:
-Identification of needed functionalities
– Identification of necessary IT-support
– Requirement for ADS
-Developments in MEM Development and implementation of new workflows in the clinic
All points were created in collaboration between doctors, nurses, IT specialists and pharmacy staff.
The development took around one year
All clinical wards that receive DDM can now manually order DDM for patients who are on their way home. This is a great help in the clinics.
Extending the timespan in which it is possible to order DDM to patients who are being discharged is planned.
Qualitative studies in patient safety for patients receiving dose dispensed medicine in the transition between Hospital and home is considered.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Muñoz Cid, CL; Sierra Torres, MI; Sánchez Martín, A; Martín Roldán, A; González Sánchez, B
A procedure was designed for the registration of drug allergies of patients admitted to the hospital in the electronic prescription program by reviewing the digital medical record.
Several issues lead to the need of this development:
-Lack of integration of allergy information from computerized history and electronic prescribing.
-To facilitate the appropriate triggering of alerts, correct allergy terminology, coded properly, and captured in a standard location
-Variability in the recording of this information at the different levels of healthcare (primary care and hospitalized).
-Difficulty in accessing information on drug allergies when prescribing and validating medical treatments.
-To improve Patient safety, there is a high risk of serious adverse events if the patient receives a drug to which he/she is allergic.
-Review of allergy documentation (free text), including a more detailed specification and characterization of the patient´s allergies to coded properly (allergy to medicines or therapeutic groups, contraindications, intolerances).
-Validation and configuration of the alert system stratifying risk by means of different colors of according to the information from the clinical history.
-Development of an algorithm to evaluate how to register each allergy depending on every different situation.
-Elaboration of a procedure to alert management and incorporation into the electronic prescription program.
-Dissemination of the procedure and awareness-raising of the need for proper recording.
-Preventing medication errors related to drug allergies and ensuring patient safety.
– Improving access to all allergy information for all healthcare professionals involved in the prescription and validation of medication.
– To have a standardized methodology for recording and coding allergies.
– Integrating medical record information into the electronic prescription system.
– Setting-up an effective alert system to avoid allergy errors in the e-prescribing system.
We have achieved the implementation in the Pharmacy Service of our hospital, but it has already been taken to the safety committee in order to extend this practice to all the services of our hospital and we are working on the formation of a working group within the Patient Safety Commission. We are considering extending this procedure to primary care in order to address this problem from all healthcare areas.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Elisabetta Volpi, Giuseppa Lo Surdo, Mattia Lorenzini, Anna Carmignani, Debora Luccetti, Stefania Baratta, Mario Cossu, Maurizio Mangione, Pierantonio Furfori, Monica Baroni, Paolo Del Sarto, Stefania Biagini
This implementation was designed to provide a safe tool for the particular context of the operating room, in which prescription and administration are actions usually urgent and concomitant. The program suggests a rapid list of prescriptions standardized for adult patients (i.e. dose, diluent, bolus/drip) and allows to register any other drug or modify default information, respecting the rules for a clear prescription before registration.
Our aim was to demonstrate the possibility to validate this program and prove its functionality.
In 2019 a multidisciplinary group (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, computer scientists) created an electronic program dedicated to the Cardiac Operating Room of the Heart Hospital, Fondazione Monasterio (Italy), which allow the prompt registration of drug prescriptions and administrations. Furthermore this program guarantees traceability of the drugs administered by the nurses, in order to improve medication safety practice.
This program was created into the electronic prescribing system available in Fondazione Monasterio. The standardized prescriptions already in use in the operating room were reviewed by a pharmacist, consulting the information in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC), in the literature or by contacting the company that holds the MA. For each discrepancies identified a solution was proposed and shared with the working group, in order to validate a definitive list.
The prescriptions extracted by the IT Systems unit 6 months before and after the implementation of the new program were therefore analyzed.
A list of 182 standardized prescriptions was validated and reported in the program.
Among the 10,320 prescriptions made before the new program none had traceability of the drugs administered, while the 8,730 of the following period were complete and 99.6% of them fell within the standardized prescriptions, demonstrating the functionality and correct selection by the working group.
The development of a program for the computerized registration of prescriptions made during the surgery, which respond to the requirements of drug safety and traceability, represents an example of good practice.
We have implemented this tool in the paediatric population, with particular precautions due to the weight variability (i.e. dose/kg). The next step could be integration with further assessments (e.g., kidney function evaluation) and the transfer to other settings
Clinical Pharmacy Services
MARTA VALERA-RUBIO, ROSARIO MORA-SANTIAGO, MARIA ISABEL SIERRA-TORRES, JOSE LUIS ORTIZ-LATORRE, ISABEL MOYA-CARMONA
The existence of different prescription systems could lead to validation errors when the pharmacist responsible for the ICU is not available. Furthermore, ICU physicians could not benefit from all the advantages that the official prescription system included. The presence of a common integrated prescription system among all units allow the exchange of prescription drug information between the ICU and the rest of the units, in accord with the health situation of the patient. Moreover, with this new system they can have access to allergies, renal adjustment doses, recommended posologies, therapeutic exchanges, and pharmacy validation, among other items.
Moreover, with this new system they can have access to allergies, renal adjustment doses, recommended posologies, therapeutic exchanges, and pharmacy validation, among other items.
The intensive care unit (ICU) used a computerised physician order entry system different from all the hospital units. The pharmacy service, along with the ICU physicians and nurses, have tried to adapt the special features of this unit to integrate it with the clinical decision prescription system that is official in the hospital.
A multidisciplinary team formed by ICU staff (doctors and nurses) and pharmacists met to discuss the points that should be followed when implementing the new electronic prescription programme. In these working meetings, especially with physicians, we tried to agree on what and how the infusion protocols would be included in the new system, based on the infusion pumps guides made by both units. A pilot phase was established by the end of July 2019 to detect possible errors in the process of prescription, and mostly, when a patient changed from two units, from the ICU to another health care service and vice versa. All errors or discordances found were discussed between the pharmacist and the physician or the nurse, and in order to solve them we contacted the managers of the prescription system or we modified the parameters that are included in the system such as names of drugs, dosage guidelines, new nurses’ orders, etc.
The implementation of this new system has been well embraced by the staff, since it allowed a more efficient and secure health care circuit for the patients. All physicians are now able to use this system while the other one is no longer used.
We will continue making formative sessions with both physicians and nurses, in order to solve all the doubts that can appear during the training period. We will update periodically the available data and make improvements in the programme configuration.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Linda Jeffery
The primary aim was to increase patient safety by quality-assuring ESPs and guiding clinicians to rational and safe prescribing. The Central Denmark Region (1.3 million citizens) has five hospitals, each with their own hospital and ward management. ESPs were previously set up and maintained locally, often by clinicians at ward level, resulting in several thousand, and a huge variety of ESPs for the same indication/treatment. Often only small differences separated these, but larger differences were also observed. Both patients and clinicians move around hospitals within the region. Varying ESPs from hospital to hospital confused clinicians and compromised patient safety.
The regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee (DTC) commissioned the Hospital Pharmacy, Central Denmark Region to take over management of electronic standard prescriptions (ESP) in the shared Electronic Prescribing System (EPS). The pharmacy was also commissioned to lead the unification of local to regional ESPs, in collaboration with clinical specialists. ESPs are electronic ‘packages’ of one or more prescriptions, set up for treatment of defined conditions/procedures e.g. knee-replacement. When the clinician prescribes an ESP, the predefined prescriptions appear automatically in the patient’s medicines list.
The Hospital Pharmacy highlighted clinical areas/treatments with several variations of the same ESP. The DTC appointed relevant clinicians to work with a pharmacist on unifying these, to one (or more) standardised ESPs, to be used in the whole region. The pharmacist was coordinator for the ad-hoc working groups. After approval by the DTC, these ESPs replaced the existing. If a department wanted an ESP that differed from the regional ESP, this had to be approved by the DTC.
Regional ESPs have been approved for:
• Abortion (reduced from 17 to six).
• Helicobacter pylori eradication (reduced from 28 to two).
• Treatment of paracetamol-overdosage.
Many new ESPs have been approved, promoting:
• Safe prescribing of complicated regimes e.g. fosphenytoin loading/maintenance.
• Use of regional formulary drugs e.g. antibiotics for pneumonia/urosepsis.
We continue to work on other regimes that can be unified e.g. treatment of Wernickes prophylaxis/syndrome and parenteral nutrition. We recently met with pharmacists from two other regions that use the same EPS as us – maybe we can share ESPs nationwide in future.
