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.
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.
Production and Compounding
Annemarie Aart van der – Beek van der, Mattijs Maris, Erwin Koetse, Alex Hol, Meilof Feiken
Hospital Pharmacies and especially the laboratories produce wastewater containing medicine residue. When this wastewater is discharged into sewage it contributes to the load of pharmaceutical residue and ultimately to pollution of surface-, ground and drinking water. To reduce this load, waste can be collected and transported to a processing facility for incineration and deactivation or alternatively treated locally. Our goal was to develop a practically applicable method that could effectively reduce the pharmaceutical sewage load locally, at the source.
We developed a practical, compact, disposable filtration system that can be used on-site to reduce the amount of pharmaceutical residue in wastewater of our pharmaceutical laboratory. We tested and optimized the composition of the filter to effectively collect organic substances from locally produced wastewater (influent). We monitored filter performance and durability by analysis of filtrates (effluent).
Laboratory wastewater was collected during one month to yield 10 L influent. Portions of influent were filtered through 9 different types of filter packing and the effluents collected for analysis.
The influent reference and effluent samples were analysed using an iontrap LC/MS screening method using diazepam-D5 as an internal standard. The signal abundance 12 most relevant substances was chosen to evaluate the level of reduction by filtration. Based on these analyses, the optimal filter packing was determined.
In the effluent of the best performing filter packing, the abundance of 9 substances was reduced by 91,5-99,9%. The abundance for the other 3 substances was below detection limit.
Substances removed more >99%: atorvastatine, carbamazepine, clarithromycine, diclofenac, granisetron, midazolam, naproxen, propranolol and rocuronium. Substances removed between 91-99%: cefazolin, ephedrine and ropivacaine.
The optimal filter composition will be tested in practice in a test setup. In addition, cost effectiveness and sustainability compared to alternative waste collection methods will be evaluated.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Linda Jeffery, Maria Grønkjær Abrahamsen, Anja Alrø Bøtkjær, Lotte Aggergaard, Ann Brit Andersen
Our country has a national SMR for every citizen. The SMR shows the current medication that the citizen has been prescribed, from all sectors. All sectors can see the SMR, which is considered/ought to be the ‘truth’ about the patient’s medication. On discharge from the hospital the SMR is updated by the doctor. Afterwards, pharmacy technicians dispense medicines for discharge. The technicians, at this stage, often find discrepancies in the SMR compared to the medication prescribed and given during admission. The SMR is electronically updated but not adequately reconciled. False information in the SMR may ultimately lead to adverse drug safety events in the primary sector.
The regional hospital pharmacy patient safety network studied how many patients do not have a reconciled electronic Shared Medication Record (SMR) at discharge, despite the doctor having electronically updated it.
The technician recorded the discrepancies found before contacting the doctor to get the SMR corrected.
Each discrepancy was reported into the national patient safety database.
The technicians do not dispense medicines to all discharged patients, so our results were extrapolated to all discharged patients in the time period (there was no reason to expect bias).
The study was carried out in the whole region (5 hospitals) during the same week in September 2022.
Preliminary data shows that 994 patients were discharged from the wards studied.
Technicians dispensed medicines to 278 patients. They found one or more discrepancies in 65 SMRs (23,4%).
Extrapolation of these results revealed that, in the period, there were potentially 232 patients with drug-related problems from these wards (and approx. 17,000/year in the region).
Our results showed that the SMR is not adequately reconciled in 23% of discharges, despite the doctor feeling that the task is completed. This gives drug related problems in the primary sector, often resulting in calls to the ward etc. that are time consuming and difficult to solve after discharge. Updating the SMR at discharge is essential for patient safety under transition of care. Our results will be brought to the hospital administrations, patient safety organisations and the regional medicines board for further discussion about the problem and possible solutions.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
A. Navarro-Ruíz, C. Matoses-Chirivella, J.M. Del Moral-Sánchez, M. Morante, F.J. Rodríguez-Lucena, R. Gutiérrez-Vozmediano, A. Martínez-Valero, A. Andújar, E. García-Iranzo, A. Martí-LLorca
There is evidence of discontinuity medication between different health care levels. In fact, on admission to hospital, up to one in two patients has an incomplete medicine list , resulting in a medicine not being administered during the hospital stay. This situation could be associated with an increased risk of hospital readmission or adverse drug reaction (ADR). Some studies show that an elevated percentage of surgical patients take medications prior to surgery, cardiac medications principally, but almost 50% of the drugs are omitted on the day of surgery.
To develop a guideline to achieve the continuity of quality use of medicines between hospital and community in surgical patients.
The lack of medical evidence is reflected by the large variation in perioperative management recommendations among several group of experts. The recommendations in this guideline are to a large degree expert opinion, based on information from other reviews and textbooks, along with clinical experience. After a thorough review, the guide has obtained the consent of the Commission of pharmacy and therapeutics of the hospital.
The guide of conciliation of the medication includes a medication review structured according to the classification made by WHO ‘Anatomical, Therapeutic, Chemical classification system’. In each one of them, including the benefits and risks of continuing with this therapy during the perioperative process. It also includes various annexes, on antihypertensive, glucocorticoids and medicinal plants.
In the future, we would recommend prioritising the conciliation to the discharge with respect to other points of transition assistance, since the potential severity of an error of conciliation not intercepted the discharge of the patient is greater than if it occurs within the hospital.
