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.
Education and Research
Stine Hygum Sørensen, Henrik Nielsen, Ulla Kloster, Anne Grethe Nørgaard Kyndi, Maja Vad Mortensen, Dorthe Ludvigsen
The concept of medicine at Gødstrup Hospital is based on Patient involvement in the medicine process. Consequently, the patients bring their own medicine, which is stored in the patient’s room, and additional medicine is supplied in original packages. Medicine dispensing is performed in the patient’s room to allow patient participation. The medicine rooms at the hospital are quite small, because the majority of the medicine is with the patient, but it also makes medicine rooms unsuited for on-site training of new nurses.
Virtual Reality (VR) technology was applied for introduction of newly hired nurses to medicine rooms at the hospital.
Newly hired nurses are given a four hour introduction to the concept of medicine at Gødstrup Hospital, Denmark. The introduction is given by an interdisciplinary team of a clinical pharmacist, a pharmacologist and an experienced nurse. The introduction is given in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Education (NIDO) once a month. This ensures that newly hired nurses are given the same, relevant introduction when needed.
Introduction to medicine rooms is part of the training for nurses in introductory positons. Using VR newly hired nurses are given a different and exciting introduction to medicine rooms.
In collaboration with the simulation unit at NIDO we made a VR-video to enable up to 20 new nurses to see the same introduction at the same time. Hospital Pharmacy staff is featured in the VR recording and guides viewers to specific parts of the medicine room, explaining important topics such as waste disposal, hygiene and anatomical therapeutic chemical (ATC) groups.
The participants are positive and give the following feedback to the VR segment of the introduction: “It was significantly easier to deal with as a newbie”. “It was very visual as being there in reality”. “There was time to learn in a calm environment”, “It worked fine as a lesson” and “It is a good change from backboard teaching.”
The monthly introductions continues and further collaboration with NIDO will result in lessons with topics such as pharmaceutical formulations and drug calculations. Perhaps VR will be included in this too.
Education and Research
There are five accredited faculties of pharmacy in Bulgaria – two in Sofia, one in Plovdiv, one in Varna and one in Pleven. The training is only full-time with a duration of 5 years, with 26 compulsory courses in which hospital pharmacy is covered to a very small extent. Only one of the faculties in Sofia offers the opportunity to specialise in clinical pharmacy during the studies, which include 30 hours of lectures and 45 hours of exercises in hospital pharmacy. The disinterest of graduating students in pursuing a career in hospital pharmacy prompted the BAHP Board to organise this competition to bring attention to hospital pharmacy in a non-traditional way.
The Bulgarian Association of Hospital Pharmacists /BAHP/ organises during its annual conference a National Competition for Pharmacy Students “Become a Hospital Pharmacist” – for the first time in 2021. Since then, it has been held annually with increasing interest from students.
The areas in which the students will compete – Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy, Regulation of Hospital Pharmacy and Practical part, as well as the regulations of the competition were determined. An invitation with information was sent to all faculties. For the year 2021, teams from three faculties participated, for 2022 four faculties, and for 2023 all faculties will participate. Each team has a scientific supervisor and the costs of participation are covered by the university.
1.Strengthening the links between the BAHP and the faculties
2. Repeatedly increased student interest in hospital pharmacy.
3. Increased number of students wanting to do their pre-graduate internship in hospital pharmacy
Continuation of the annual competition and deepening the collaboration with the faculties. It is also possible to organise such an event between different countries.
Education and Research
Maria Agerboe Sondrup, Anette Sand Østergaard
Training of operators has previously been performed, however there was no consistent programme for continuing training in the department to secure optimal training of operators. Equally the effectivity and durability of the training was not evaluated. The aim was to establish a thorough system for continuing training focusing on ongoing confirmation of proper training as well as adaptation and optimization throughout.
A programme for continuing training of operators was designed and implemented in a clean room production department by GMP-responsible operators and academics.
A template was designed for the programme. One module takes up to 3 months.
The template is the following:
Observation:
– Trainers observe operators in a clean room
– Current technique is observed and if necessary corrected
Training material:
– Developing educational material based on SOPs
– Short videos, PowerPoint presentations etc.
Individual training:
– Operators answer handed out multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) by themselves
Group training:
– The correct answers to the MCQ are presented by the trainers at a plenary session
– All answers are discussed
Observation:
– Trainers observe operators in a clean room
– Current technique is observed and if necessary corrected
Evaluation:
– Trainers evaluate the training in terms of improvement from the first to the second observation
– Trainers write a report that is presented to the operators
A systematic and relatively simple training programme has been implemented. This streamlines the training of operators, thereby making it easier for the trainers to introduce new subjects and ensures that all new operators are trained the same as the experienced operators. The programme also makes the training system recognizable for the operators, which gives a higher compliance.
The program has only been implemented on processes related to production in clean room, but the training method can easily be applied to subjects outside of the clean room or in other healthcare settings. To involve the operators in the process, the second observation could be delegated to other operators and not just the trainers.
Education and Research
Anthony Serracino Inglott, Maria Mamo, Amar Abbas, Luana Mifsud Buhagiar
Regulatory science is not some detached activity performed in secluded offices but is applied by pharmacists as an integral part of their daily work, whether thought of as regulatory intelligence or not. This initiative endeavored to offer educational intervention, for streamlining a patient-centric culture and addressing gaps, while waning concerns regarding potential conflicts arising from regulator-stakeholder interactions.
The Malta Medicines Authority (MMA), through the MMA Academy for Patient Centred Excellence and Innovation in Regulatory Sciences, implemented a course intended for collaborative synergy with professionals in patient care settings. Strengthening regulatory intelligence may provide substantial return on investment for the ultimate benefit of patients.
In April 2023, the MMA Academy completed registration as a Further and Higher Educational Institution. An accredited 3-day course, leading to an Award in Basic Regulatory Sciences (Malta/European Qualifications Framework Level 4), was launched across stakeholders. Twenty-four experts were engaged to deliver sessions on legislation, ethics, quality, information sources, digitalization, pharmacovigilance, good practices, risk, and avoiding victims of the system. Registrations were initially slow, owing possibly to the holiday season, increasing to maximal venue capacity following reminder mails and media posts. The course was delivered in September and feedback collected through a Likert scale evaluation exercise.
Thirty participants (8 from public, 22 from private entities) completed the course successfully. All respondents to the course evaluation exercise (n=24) expressed satisfaction with course content and willingness to attend further courses. Promisingly, 92% of same respondents found the information presented relevant to their practice, anticipating performance improvement. Feedback included recommendations for future initiatives, particularly on regulatory oversight of aesthetic medicine services and integration of artificial intelligence in hospital pharmacy practices. A continuous educational needs exchange is encouraged for course development tailored to respective patient care settings.
Interest was expressed by the Health Department (Ministry for Health, Malta) to support eligible candidates for participation, auguring well for enhanced prospective engagement by clinical pharmacists and colleagues in the state hospitals. This may also serve as example to other competent authorities. Going forward, the MMA Academy intends to invest in online provision to reach a wider audience through a virtual environment.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Florian Poncelet, Cedric Mwamba, Valentine Foulon , Anne-sophie Da Silva Rego, Catherine Floret
Medication adherence of post-stroke treatments is important in preventing stroke recurrence. Problems of adherence with these medications are frequently encountered. Patient education is therefore essential in the management of this pathology.
The creation of tools for the medication session of the post-stroke therapeutic education programme and the measure of the activity impact on patients’ knowledge of their treatments.
The session is led by a pharmacist in the form of a Game of the Goose, with the cards divided into 3 different colours, each corresponding to one of the 3 categories seen during the activity: General Questions, Statins and Anticoagulants/Anti-aggregants. This form allows participants to learn in a fun way and to promote interactions.
To evaluate the impact of these sessions, the same quiz is filled out by the patients at the beginning and end of the session, in order to measure the improvement of their knowledge. This quiz is in the form of an evaluation grid, composed of 20 questions with binary answers (True/False) covering the concepts discussed during the activity. The answers allow the attribution of a grade out of 20.
33 game cards were created (12 cards for general questions, 8 for statins and 13 for anticoagulants/anti-aggregants, of which three concern anti-vitamin K).
The patients take turns drawing a card and think collectively. The correct answer is later explained by the pharmacist. At the end of the activity, forms summarising the points discussed are given to the patients.
Concerning the quiz, the evaluation of the impact of these sessions was carried out on a first group of seven patients. The average score was 14 (12-17) at the beginning of the activity and 17 at the end (15-20), thus an average improvement in knowledge of 21% (0-58%).
An analysis of the questions with the lowest rate of positive responses will help us to improve the messages during the activity. A treatment plan given to patients at the end of the session to help them take their medication is also being discussed.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Trine Birkholm, Trine Rune Høgh Andersen
The Danish Ministry of Health has declared which healthcare professionals should handle medication such as dispensing and administration to patients in hospitals. Traditionally, primarily nurses and physicians handle administration of medicines in the Danish hospitals. In recent years a massive shortage of nurses in Danish healthcare has called for other professions to participate in administration of medicines. As Denmark has employed less than one clinical pharmacist per 100 beds in hospitals, pharmacists are not able to contribute to the task. However, clinical pharmacists can have an important role in educating other healthcare professionals e.g. HCAs in handling medicines.
Because of massive lack of nurses and thereby healthcare professionals to administer medicine in psychiatric wards in Region Zealand, Denmark, the pharmacists developed and implemented a training course for social and healthcare assistants (HCAs) to participate in the task.
As hospital pharmacists should ensure that the information needed for safe medicines use, including both preparation and administration, is accessible at the point of care (EAHP statement 5.9), aiding in the development of a training course for HCAs was ideal for the clinical pharmacists. The training course has a duration of 3 days followed by a mentored trainee period. The course includes psychopharmacology lessons to teach HCAs to observe and react to overdoses, lack of effect or side effects as declared in medicine handling guidelines.
Approximately 150 HCAs have attended the course since 2020. Eight out of ten state that the course has enabled them to take on the new work tasks. Nine out of ten believe that they can use the newly acquired knowledge and practical skills for their new work tasks. Today, the administration of medicines in the psychiatry ward is also managed by HCAs, thus relieving the nurses’ time needed for more specialised tasks.
There is also a shortage of nurses in the somatic hospitals. To ensure patient safety and enough staff to dispense and administer medicines, several hospital wards have requested similar training for HCAs. It is believed that similar training courses with modifications can target somatic wards as well.
Education and Research
Paola Minghetti, Giuseppe Danilo Norata, Francesca Selmin, Paolo Rocco, Vito Ladisa, Margherita Galassi
The availability of mAbs to treat different pathologies is steadily growing, causing a steep increase in the level of training needed in different areas of pharmacists’ intervention, including compounding, handling and storage. As this process will be sustained by the increasing availability of biosimilars, pharmacists, the key health professionals responsible for their compounding and handling, will face new challenges.
The aim of this project is to overcome the common problems encountered by hospital pharmacists in obtaining education on biosimilars, included limited financial support, heavy workload or inadequate educational resources.
A self-paced educational course has been designed and implemented with the aim of providing a fundamental grounding in the physical chemistry, pharmacology and technology of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs)-based medicines in oncology, both originators and biosimilars and the methodology associated with their compounding and handling.
The primary target audience for this project consists of hospital pharmacists in the EU, though students in the specialization in Hospital Pharmacy and community pharmacists may benefit from the course.
The course has been designed and developed to address, previously assessed, unmet educational needs. The resulting format comprises both theoretical and remote real-world training on the pharmacology, technology and stability of mAbs, the technology and rationale of biosimilars and the regulatory aspects of biotechnological medicinal products.
A series of webinars in on demand movie format has been produced. The webinars contain a comprehensive theoretical section – covering biosimilar mAbs pharmacology and formulative and regulatory aspects – and a practice section in which the preparation steps of oncology mAbs are filmed and discussed in a hospital setting. All training activities have been recorded in remote both in Italian and in English. Every module is designed to be used as a single unit and has a duration of approximately 30 minutes. The total duration of the course is 8 hours.
The course will be CME accredited in Italy through Fondazione Francesco Cannavò, nonprofit CME provider of the Federation of Italian Pharmacists Associations. It will be made available to pharmacists through national and international CME platforms, providing fundamental grounding in the methodology associated with oncology monoclonal antibody biosimilar formulation.
Education and Research
Vincent ARCANI, Stéphane HONORÉ, Guillaume HACHE
Interprofessional collaboration as an effective means for improving healthcare outcomes. In order to achieve an effective level of collaborative healthcare practice, health care educators must focus attention on interprofessional education in undergraduate programs. Knowledge of professional role of others is a key competency for interprofessional practices and there is a lack of knowledge on hospital pharmacists’ roles among other health care professionals.
We developed a workshop focused on the role of hospital pharmacists, to be integrated into the curricula of other health professionals.
The workshop was developed by a resident in hospital pharmacy and a senior hospital pharmacist, and we first targeted medical curriculum. The session integrated: students’ perception of hospital pharmacists’ role, didactic learning on the role of hospital pharmacists according to the European statements in hospital pharmacy, immersion in practice and evaluation. The assessment of the learning effect was performed by a pre-/post-workshop questionnaire, assessing satisfaction, metacognition and acquired knowledge. In addition, students provided open feedback on the workshop.
We implemented the workshop during the first year of clinical clerkship in medical education. Preliminary results highlighted (i) a high satisfaction, illustrating the relevance of the initiative; (ii) an increase in perceived knowledge and (iii) an increase in knowledge about hospital pharmacists’ roles, especially about pharmaceutical technologies and medical devices. Verbatim analysis of the feedback suggested that the workshop modified medical students’ perceptions on the role of hospital pharmacists, and that they may be more inclined to seek collaboration with hospital pharmacists.
To integrate the workshop into the curricula of the other professions in order to raise awareness on hospital pharmacy and promote interprofessional teamwork.
Education and Research
Elodie Delavoipière, Marianne Pavard, Anne-Laure Richard, Julien Montreuil, Albane Cherel, Céline Bouglé
Every year in our country, 10,000 preventable deaths and more than 130,000 preventable hospitalizations are related to drug misuse. This issue is a priority of the national health strategy. Therefore, we developed a CPD training program on the issues and methods of managing the risk of ME.
A regional multi-disciplinary Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program was developed, dealing with the risk management of medication errors (ME).
This program was submitted to the National CPD Agency and accepted as a continuing education measure, corresponding to the national orientation: “control of risks associated with healthcare acts and pathways”. The program and the training materials were developed by a 13-member regional working group, including hospital pharmacists and quality managers, the drug observatory and the regional health quality network.
The training is intended for any health professional involved in the medication circuit in a health or medico-social institution: physicians, pharmacists, residents, nurses, pharmacy technicians… The first part is an e-learning slide presentation with voice commentary, on the theoretical aspects of ME and on the principles of a priori and a posteriori risk management. Concrete examples of ME are integrated throughout the slide presentation. This e-learning is divided into 4 parts and is accessible for 1 month. It must be validated by the learner before participating in the second part of the training: a face-to-face simulation session with 15 learners and 2 hospital trainers (pharmacist and health quality professional). During half a day, the learners apply a posteriori risk management by analysing a fictional adverse event (ME). The case addresses several themes: never events, drug reconciliation, city-hospital link, lack of communication, human factors. Questionnaires completed before, during and after the training allow for the evaluation of learners’ satisfaction as well as the impact of the training on their knowledge and skills.
This regional training will promote the link between actors from different institutions and the multi-disciplinary approach around the management of the risks of ME. In addition, we provide an awareness kit on ME reporting, including a customizable slide show and a quiz, which allows short sessions to be conducted in any health facility.
Education and Research
Agnes Ann Feemster, Nicoletta Zallocco, Carlo Polidori
Development of pharmacy education on a global scale is an international initiative. Additionally, employers recognise that global experiences positively impact a variety of applicant qualities, including curiosity, willingness to take risks, a non- judgmental attitude, and a broader worldview. The goal of this collaboration is to expose students to the medication distribution system and role of the pharmacist in an international practice setting with an aim of developing a more well-rounded, culturally aware pharmacist.
A partnership between the University of Camerino (UNICAM), Camerino, Italy and the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP), Baltimore, Maryland, USA was formed. Under the agreement, the two universities exchange student pharmacists for five-week internships in hospital pharmacy.
A memorandum of understanding was implemented between the two universities in May 2018 with the first UMSOP student visiting in September 2018. A professor from each university co-coordinates the internship. UMSOP students self-fund travel while UNICAM students self-fund and seek university support; funding is a barrier to pursuing the experience. Housing logistics for the students is also challenging. UMSOP students receive academic credit for the experience, requiring that the Italian site meet the advanced practice experience objectives.
The programme intended to exchange one-two students annually. After the inaugural student, eight UMSOP students pursued the UNICAM internship, resulting in six student placements at three Italian hospitals. One UNICAM student pursued a cardiology experience at an academic medical centre in Baltimore. UMSOP students perform a preceptor and site evaluation after the internship. 100% of students completed the evaluation with an overall evaluation score of strongly agree that the preceptor and site provided a positive experience. A structured interview with the UNICAM student indicated a greater understanding of clinical pharmacy practice and the role of a pharmacist on an interdisciplinary team, which may be used to further develop hospital pharmacy services in Italy.
This international exchange demonstrated a high degree of satisfaction among participants. While currently limited to students, this initiative should be considered for practising pharmacists. Sharing of best practices and the interchange of ideas may generate practice enhancements, lead to innovations, and stimulate personal growth.
