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.
Production and Compounding
Maria Rautamo, Niina Laihanen , Laura Lehtola
Erysipelas was the most commonly treated infectious disease at the home hospital unit in 2015. Previously the standard treatment was broad-spectrum antibiotic cefuroxime three times daily. The infectious disease specialist wanted to improve the antibiotic stewardship by shifting from cefuroxime to a continuous infusion of narrow spectrum benzylpenicillin. The aim of the initiative was also to improve patient care and reduce the number of treatment visits and thus overall treatment costs.
The production unit at the hospital pharmacy began preparing elastomeric pumps containing benzylpenicillin for Helsinki city home hospital unit for the treatment of outpatients suffering from erysipelas. A pilot study was conducted in November 2018 before further implementation of the elastomeric pumps.
A benzylpenicillin 10 million IU infusion solution was prepared and transferred to elastomeric pumps (Folfusor LV10, Baxter) in the production unit at the hospital pharmacy. The production method was developed by pharmacists at the hospital pharmacy in cooperation with Baxter and the formulation as well as stability information was received from Baxter. The pilot study was planned and executed in cooperation with Helsinki city home hospital unit. The batch size of prepared elastomeric pumps was 7 pumps a week and the overall pilot period consisted of 5 weeks. A total of 8 patients were treated during this period. The opinions of nurses and patients about the use of elastomeric pumps were investigated through a questionnaire. The impact on treatment costs were also evaluated.
Elastomeric pumps containing benzylpenicillin have been implemented as a standard treatment for erysipelas at the home hospital unit. Cost savings from the pilot period of 5 weeks were 125 nurse visits corresponding to approximately 100 hours of work as well as 200 km of driving for nurses to patients’ homes. The patients were very pleased with the elastomeric pumps and the fact that the pump had to be changed only once daily.
Production and delivery of elastomeric pumps containing benzylpenicillin has expanded to other home hospital units. The implementation of elastomeric pumps containing other active ingredients is under investigation.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Imke Willrodt, Delia Bornand, Jimena Ramos, Stojan Petkovic, Giulia Mohr, Anne Leuppi-Taegtmeyer
Due to critical incidents involving opioids reported internally at the University Hospital Basel in 2018, there was an urgent need to evaluate underlying reasons for these events. The Opioid AG was established with the aim to mitigate risks for the correct prescription and application of opioids, and therefore to improve patient safety.
The Opioid Working Group at the University Hospital Basel is an interdisciplinary working group including representatives from different professions (physicians, nurses, pharmacists) and departments (medical, surgery, gynaecology, emergency, pain therapy, palliative care, pharmacology and toxicology, patient safety and information technology).
The thorough analysis of root causes for the critical incidents revealed prescribing and application errors, such as non-observance of kidney failure, pharmacodynamic interactions of opioids with other prescribed drugs, inadvertent overdosing – in particular with liquid drug formulations, or patient mix-ups.
Consequently, the following steps are being taken to address these risks: 1. Optimisation of the prescribing software including opioid prescription templates, links to existing opioid unit conversion tables for liquid forms of diamorphine, morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone (milligrams to millilitres) as well as clearer display of “as required” opioid prescriptions on the patients’ electronic drug charts. 2. Preparation of Standard Medication Preparation Schemes for nursing staff of the emergency department. 3. Development of an additional label (concentration, patient initials, date of reconstitution, date of expiry of reconstituted solution) for parenteral diamorphine. 4. Improvement in detailed written instructions for the correct preparation, labelling, application and disposal of intravenous and oral drugs (to include opioids). 5. Evaluation of a hospital opioid safety self-assessment tracking tool.
A comprehensive evaluation will take place, 6 months after the implementation of all measures. We will use the number of naloxone prescriptions on the wards as a key performance indicator to measure the success of this project. The reported critical incidents involving opioids will also be assessed before and after the implementation of all measures.
This evaluation will help to identify open questions, potential gaps and further needs for improvement to be addressed by the interdisciplinary team.
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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Alison Brown, Gillian Cavell, Nikita Dogra, Cate Whittlesea
Anticoagulants are high-risk drugs. An NHS England Patient Safety Alert was published in 2015 highlighting harm from inappropriate co-prescription of anticoagulants1.
A ‘duplicate anticoagulant alert’ (Anticoagulant MLM) was implemented within our electronic prescribing system (EPMA) to alert prescribers if co-prescription of two or more anticoagulants was attempted, with the intention of preventing the completion of a potentially harmful prescription. We conducted a retrospective review of the impact of the Anticoagulant MLM on preventing co-prescription of low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH) and direct oral anticoagulants (DOACS)
The study took place in a 950 bed UK acute teaching hospital. A report of all Anticoagulant MLM alerts generated for adult inpatients between 26th June 2017 and 8th October 2018 was extracted from EPMA. Data on drugs prescribed, alert acceptance or override and duplicate anticoagulant administration were collected. Where alerts were overridden, appropriateness of the override was assessed by an anticoagulation specialist pharmacist. Ethics approval was not needed.
The Anticoagulant MLM triggered on 894 occasions; 113 in response to attempted prescription of a LMWH for a patient already prescribed a DOAC. 65 of 113 alerts were overridden (duplicate prescription completed). 48 alerts were accepted (duplicate prescription avoided). Of the 65 overridden alerts, consecutive doses of both anticoagulants were scheduled appropriately. No duplicate doses were administered in 44 cases (44/65, 67.7%). 15 duplicate prescriptions were either cancelled before administration or not administered concurrently (15/65, 23.1%). Duplicate doses were administered against 6 prescriptions (6/65, 9.2%), on 3 occasions. No patient harm was identified. The alert prevented inappropriate co-prescription of anticoagulants to 48 patients. Overrides were justified in 44 cases. Anticoagulants were correctly prescribed for 92/113 (81.4%) patients. It was outside the scope of this project to investigate why alerts were overridden. ‘Alert fatigue’2 and alert frequency3 are recognised factors limiting the effectiveness of electronic alerts in changing a planned course of action.
The alert remains in place as a barrier to error. Further work is needed to identify reasons for anticoagulant alert overrides.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Ana Soares, Armando Alcobia
Several clinical practice guidelines for LC recommend that multidisciplinary teams should be used to plan patients’ treatment. The evolution of thoracic oncology, namely the increasing knowledge of the diverse histologic and molecular phenotypes in non-small cell LC, has been driven to more complex treatment algorithms in recent years. This complexity increases the need for a multidisciplinary approach in therapeutic decision-making, which must be individualised and based on the best information available. The pharmacist’s inclusion in the multidisciplinary team is essential and was formerly proposed by the Pneumology Director to the Hospital Administration Board.
A hospital pharmacist is a permanent member of the lung cancer (LC) multidisciplinary team, which has met weekly since January 2016, to plan the management and treatment of LC patients in our hospital. The pharmacist brings updated information about the efficacy and safety of drug treatments, its cost-effectiveness and its availability. The pharmacist improves communication with the Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committee.
The multidisciplinary team meets weekly to discuss the diagnosis and treatment options of LC patients, and includes a dedicated group of professionals: pulmonary oncologists, a thoracic surgeon, a radiation oncologist, a radiologist, a pathologist, a nuclear medicine specialist, a hospital pharmacist, a palliative care physician and an oncology nurse.
About 240 cases, corresponding to 200 patients were discussed per year. An average of 110 solicitations to the Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committee were made. The multidisciplinary team grants a systematic approach to diagnosis and therapeutics, in compliance with evidence-based guidelines, improves communication and coordination between professionals and short waiting times for the patient.
The next step is to systematise real-world data collecting, from the patients treated, to better understanding the effectiveness of treatment options and the real impact of the multidisciplinary team in patient outcome, ideally, extending it onto a national level.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Clara Estaún-Martínez, Isabel Moya-Carmona, Laila Dani-Ben Abdel-lah, Jose Manuel Fernández-Ovies
This initiative was taken in order to improve uptake and completion rates of PEP, and to homogenise the healthcare circuit for these patients and the prescribed drugs.
A protocol was implemented in order to standardise the prescription and dispensation of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) after occupational or nonoccupational exposure to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
A multidisciplinary team including Infectious Diseases and Preventive Medicine (PM) doctors, pharmacists and Emergency Room (ER) staff developed the following protocol for PEP according to World Health Organisation and national guidelines: – standard three-drug regimen for PEP: Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/Emtricitabine + Raltegravir for 28 days. The pharmacy service (PS) repackages kits for five, 23 or 28 days that include antiretroviral drugs (AD) and written information about the treatment (use, length of the treatment, main interactions and side effects, contact number). Only 5-day PEP kits will be located in the ER. – Twenty-four-hour access granted to PEP kits as it is strongly recommended to initiate PEP as early as possible (ideally within 72h). –
Established healthcare circuit for patients in the ER:
• Monday–Fridays (8h00–15h00): patients will be immediately referred to PM, then they will go the PS in order to receive a 28-day PEP kit and pharmaceutical care.
• Out of this schedule and bank holidays: ER doctors will give patients a 5-day PEP kit and they will be referred to PM the next working day. After visiting PM, the patient will go to the PS in order to receive the rest of PEP (23-day kit) and pharmaceutical care. –
Several meetings took place in order to explain this new circuit to the health professionals involved and written copies were available on the ER as well as on the intranet.
The implementation of this protocol was well embraced by all the staff involved, since it allowed a more efficient healthcare circuit for the patients. It also optimises the evaluation and monitoring of these patients by PM and the pharmacist, and grants prompt PEP initiation and 24h access to the AD. The 28 days (or 5+23 days) kits help to accomplish the proper length of treatment, without using the regular packages which include 30 days of treatment (saving €43.17 per treatment).
We will monitor the compliance with this protocol and the drugs prescribed for PEP.
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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Gregorio Romero Candel, Paula Ruiz Belda, Carmen Caballero Requejo, Maria Jesus Sanchez Cuenca, Jose Marco del Rio, Juilan Castillo Sanchez, Luna Carratala Herrera
Some drugs dispensed in the outpatient office present interactions with food, leading to changes in their bioavailability. These changes which can result in a decrease in therapeutic activity or an increase in adverse effects, when dealing with narrow therapeutic margin drugs, may lead to alterations in their efficacy and/or toxicity. Developing the quick and accessible consultation table, we improved the quality and effectiveness of the treatment.
Preparation of the drug and food interaction guide for outpatient consultations.
The technical specifications of all drugs that are dispensed in the hospital outpatient office were consulted, and the possible interactions with food of every one of them were analysed by consulting the following electronic databases: Technical sheet, Bot Plus, Micromedex, Pubmed, UpToDate and Online Medicine Information Centre of the AEMPS. A database was developed with drugs that presented some type of restriction with meals, designing a quick reference table for outpatient consultation.
One-hundred specialities were reviewed, of which 22 were to be taken without food, 43 with food and 35 could be taken with or without food. The information given to the patient was quick and efficient, improving the effectiveness and safety of the treatment.
Our goal is to continue developing tools that allow us to provide quality information to the patient, improving the effectiveness and safety of treatments.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Gregorio Romero Candel, Maria Jesus Sanchez Cuenca , Nieves Cano Cuenca, Jose Marco del Rio , Julian Castillo Sanchez, Luna Carratala Herrera
The healthcare provided in the SSC is not fully integrated into the structures of the National Health System. These patients present a higher risk of adverse events related to pharmacotherapy, due to patient factors, with the treatment, the health system and the institutionalisation. The integral approach of the pharmaceutical benefit was necessary for improving the efficiency, safety, health and economic results due to the process using drugs and other health products in the SSC.
A pharmacotherapeutic benefit model has been started through the hospital pharmacy to the Socio-Sanitary Centres (SSC) of our health area. A pharmacotherapeutic management system based on the evaluation and selection of drugs and diet therapy items has been established.
An adherence protocol was made to the hospital pharmacy service, with the benefits that were to be provided to them. A guide was prepared with drugs and nutritional supplements that were available to them according to the Pharmacotherapeutic Guide of the Hospital Pharmacy Service, thus guaranteeing the most efficient products. A request model of both drugs and dietotherapics was developed for the SSC, assigning each centre one day per month to request the order and another day of dispensation. Finally, a calendar of distribution routes for each SSC was prepared.
For 12 months, eight SSC have been assigned to this programme, with 538 patients. Twelve shipments have been made to each centre, which have been provided with a total of 682,484 units of 223 active ingredients. The dispensation in diet therapy contained 28,045 units of 13 specialties. It has been possible to improve the pharmacotherapeutic coverage of these patients and reduce the expenditure on drugs in the area through centralised supply.
Development of follow-up programmes for patients with high health or economic impact drugs. Also, the adherence of new SSC, as well as increasing the dispensing portfolio, and achieving the integration of information systems, to have a total traceability from the patient to the different assistance levels.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Stefanie Sauer, Michael Ober, Jürgen Backhaus, Torsten Hoppe-Tichy
Patients of the Children’s Hospital at the Heidelberg University Hospital are regularly supplied with extratemporaneous medicines from the hospital pharmacy. This often leads to issues in continuity of care in the outpatient setting as patients are required to access ongoing treatment through local pharmacies, which in turn must develop the formulations and procure the necessary raw materials. Therefore, it is not uncommon for interruptions in patients’ therapy to occur.
The aim was to improve continuity of care by discussing the medication with the responsible pharmacy before the patient was discharged. Allowing missing raw materials to be procured and clarify any uncertainty about the prescription.
We designed a document that is available on the Intranet. While the child is still on the ward the discharge medication should be noted. The parents had the opportunity to indicate a retail pharmacy of their choice, preferably near the place of residence. This document could be sent to the hospital pharmacy. A hospital pharmacist contacted the specified pharmacy to discuss the extemporaneous medications before the child was discharged. If necessary, the pharmacist can forward the hospital pharmacy manufacturing instructions. Furthermore, the compositions plus further information were then made available on the homepage of the pharmacy in an area to which only experts have access. A telephone number on the hospital pharmacy homepage is available for queries, including those about the formulations.
In the discussions with the retail pharmacies, the colleagues were very pleased and grateful about the service provided by the hospital pharmacy. They saved time in preparing patients’ prescriptions. Concerns or doubts were cleared up at an earlier stage of the discharge process, leading to the patient receiving their medicine on time.
Provision of the document and manufacturing instructions on the homepage serve as a valuable aid for ensuring that the outpatient therapy functions smoothly. It is important that the information is kept current. In the future, further information will be linked to the homepage in the hope of reducing the number of incoming telephone enquiries.
