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.
The Early Career Network aims to empower early-career pharmacists by sharing opportunities, insights, and success stories from across 25 member countries.
Together, we’re building a stronger, more connected hospital pharmacy community: one story, one country, one pharmacist at a time.
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.
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
Helle Pasgaard Rommelhoff, Lise Grove, Dorthe Bartels, Trine Ann Behnk, Lars Ole Madsen
To share learning from a pilot of procuring pharmaceuticals jointly across borders in three European countries as well as post-learning on planning and execution elements in order to have a successful joint procurement.
Three European countries decided to implement a joint procurement pilot in order to seek solutions for some of the supply issues in the three markets. This was a consequence of being a small volume market with potentially limited attractivity for suppliers of older products. An initial evaluation of synergies and discrepancies among the involved countries supported the understanding of how to jointly procure medicines for the hospital sector.
The visualised model of a product lifecycle was applied to understand where a pilot of joint procurement would support the supply issues of the older products. This led to a shared understanding between the countries on where the supply issues may occur and potential solutions. An evaluation of building the joint procurement process, which took approximately 2 years, is now available as a best practice with “Do’s and Don’ts” for other countries with joint procurement interest. Criteria in the tenders announced were either price alone or in combination with. One of the tenders included a mandatory bid for all 3 markets, the rest of the tenders were mandatory for 2 of the markets with optional submission for the 3rd market. This was an outcome of hearings with suppliers. The feedback from the hearings was modifying the tender materials into a new proposal for suppliers. A political framework was signed between the countries to have a shared fundament to build on.
The final outcome of a joint procurement was evaluated. Evaluation of the submission and preparation part showed that the majority of joint tenders had an efficient competition on price with a representative amount of suppliers bidding. It also shown that it was vital to have collaboration and to listen to stakeholders in order to have a robust insight on what was possible for all involved parties. The thorough preparations supported the process and the final outcome. There was dual engagement between the stakeholders and transparency on the wish from countries to overcome barriers and conduct joint procurement to support supply issues.
Efficient and timely planning is crucial. Collaborations between the involved stakeholders are important. Mutual understanding of the interests and strategy is helpful in building a shared view on the problems and potential solutions. It is seen as essential, when planning joint procurement, to include logistic thinking already in the early tender planning phase.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Michael Scott, Glenda Fleming, Catherine Harrison
There is a wide recognition that there are significant issues with regard to the issue of medicines, such as the fact that 30−50% of medicines are not taken as required. Thus the DoH decided to set up MOIC as a vehicle to focus activities in order to address this issue and optimise medicines use.
A Regional Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC) was set up in 2015 by the Department of Health (DoH) in Northern Ireland as a key enabler for the Government policy document namely the Medicines Optimisation Quality Framework.
The DoH requested the Northern Health and Social Care Trust to locate the centre within the Trust based on the fact that there had been a long standing academic practice centre with the School of Pharmacy at Queens University of Belfast. Barriers that had to be addressed were highlighting the regional nature of the centre, to get engagement with all sectors of the service and building relationships with other key organisations, including the private sector. Initial core funding was provided by the DoH.
MOIC has successfully evaluated improved systems with regard to hospital pharmacy such as doctor-light discharge (90 minutes faster), post-discharge telephone follow-up (30 day readmission rate reduced by 9.9%), and medicines optimisation in older people service in care home settings (reduced Emergency Department attendances and medicines costs). In addition MOIC has been successful in 3 EU funding bids relating to medicines optimisation and has published over 30 papers. It has also been accredited as a Statement Implementation Learning Collaborative Centre (SILCC) site and also a Centre of Excellence by the Spanish Hospital Pharmacists Association. MOIC has also successfully worked with the private sector including pharmaceutical, device and technology companies. It has also been accredited as a knowledge provided by Invest NI.
MOIC has delivered on its key initial objectives, related to medicines optimisation with good collaborative work across health, academia and commercial organisations, in the UK and Europe. It will have a key role in meeting the WHO Global Challenge of reducing medication-related harm by 50% by 2023 for the region and further optimising medicines systems.
This approach with government policy support could be relatively easily established in any other region.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Ignacio García Giménez, Natalia Martín Fernández, Olalla Montero Pérez, Ernesto Sánchez Gómez, Isabel María Carrión Madroñal
The aim is to implement a protocol to follow when these safety notes/alerts are released from the AEMPS. It comprehends the reception of the information, its registration and its communication, when needed, to the rest of the healthcare professionals.
A communication circuit of alerts and safety notes related to drugs coming from the “Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios (AEMPS)”.
At the reception of an alert from the AEMPS, the first step is to check if the drug has been acquired by the Pharmacy, and then act in accordance with the recommendations, informing the Departments in which the medication had been dispensed. If a drug must be retired and a stock break is generated, the healthcare professionals must be informed as well. Security notes from the AEMPS are published in the local hospital website, where the documents sent by the AEMPS can be found. If this medication is included in the Pharmacotherapeutic guide, a notification is shown when it is prescribed. Finally, all alerts and security notes, with the pharmacist intervention, are registered in a database.
Since the implementation of the circuit, 14 alerts and 9 security notes were sent from the AEMPS in a period of 6 months. No interventions regarding the alerts were needed. Healthcare professionals were informed when the security notes were released, pointing to the patients at risk, the precautions required and the alternative therapies available.
To incorporate it as an indicator of quality of care within the procedures performed by the pharmacy department and detect areas of improvement.
Education and Research
Matts Balgård, Maria Swartling, Srebrenka Dobrić, Lena Klarén, Lina Karlsson
ITWP for healthcare students is established at various teaching hospitals. However, to our knowledge, no such programme in Scandinavia has included pharmacy students. Clinical pharmacy is a growing profession in Sweden and other healthcare students will in the future work alongside clinical pharmacists. Therefore we set out to add pharmacy students to the ITWP team, believing that it would be a valuable experience for them to collaborate and share knowledge with students from other healthcare professions. Equally important, it is a way to promote the pharmacist’s competence and contribution to the multiprofessional healthcare team, prior to graduation.
Final year undergraduate pharmacy students, specialising clinical pharmacy, were given the opportunity to spend two weeks of their six months pharmacy practice to participate in an interprofessional training ward placement (ITWP) together with medical, nursing and physiotherapy students. During this two-week clinical placement, the students were collaboratively responsible for managing the care of geriatric inpatients while under supervision of licensed practitioners.
A working group was formed consisting of teachers from the faculty of pharmacy, a student representative and a working clinical pharmacist. The group developed the initiative, including among other things, prerequisites, an evaluation plan, a workflow tool for clinical rounds, and suggested tasks for pharmacy students during the placement.
The programme has been running for three semesters and 6–8 pharmacy students have participated in the ITWP each semester. The initiative has been evaluated using surveys. Participating pharmacy students expressed gaining new knowledge and better insight into nursing care and the roles of the other professions. Nursing students appreciated the support in medication management and medical students found the pharmacy students to be valuable discussion partners that could challenge their drug-related decisions. Tutors expressed that the pharmacy students brought a beneficial dynamic to the ITWP team.
The opportunity for students from different professions to work together with a common objective in a real-life setting gives them valuable insight into each other’s professional roles early in their careers. This good practice initiative could be used in other interprofessional training ward placements wishing to involve pharmacy students.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Arnaud Potier, Béatrice Demoré, Alexandre Dony, Emmanuelle Divoux, Emmanuelle Boschetti, Laure-Anne Arnoux, Cédric Dupont, Jean-Christophe Calvo, David Piney, Virginie Chopard, Nathalie Cretin, Edith Dufay
Drug iatrogenia costs global health systems $52 billion annually. The third global patient safety challenge aims at reducing the global burden of iatrogenic medication-related harm by 50% within 5 years [1]. Pharmaceutical analysis is a fundamental activity, a regulatory obligation in many countries but remains a challenge. This practice is highly variable. A graphic definition of the target pharmaceutical analysis has been formalised in December 2017 which sets the basis for its digitalisation, effectively implemented since January 2019. The aim is to build a corpus of the most relevant PA to facilitate clinical pharmacist practice.
A computerised clinical pharmacy tool is integrated into the health information system of our group of hospitals (5000 beds) to promote efficiency of pharmaceutical analysis in order to improve patient safety. Pharmaceutical algorithms (PA) are conceptualised to improve drug related problems (DRP) detection and their resolution through pharmaceutical intervention (PI) according to a defined conduct to be held: anamnesis of subjective and objective elements of appreciation, DRP characterisation and PI transmission. Pharmaceutical analysis is performed by the use of PharmaClass® (Keenturtle). This software has been interfaced with 5 health data flow of two health facilities (1000 of the 2000 beds were tested): identity and patient flow, medication data, laboratory results examination, medical history, physiological constants. PA are partially encoded as rules in Pharmaclass® that issues alerts analysed by a pharmacist.
Health data are lacking of semantic interoperability which Pharmaclass® aims at overcoming from Electronical health record (EHR) queries in real time. A corpus of PA has been structured integrating the conduct to be held. PA were created by modeling the pharmaceutical experiment with the thread of criticality. PA were validated by consensus.
80 PA were encoded into Pharmaclass®: 40 are targeting serious adverse drug events. 1516 alerts were analysed and 539 PI transmitted during the 9-month test period.
This practice is applicable to any pharmaceutical analysis that uses data from an EHR. Clinical pharmacy societies should host and take care of updating corpus of PA. Its educational interest should be exploited. A European interest group for artificial intelligence in clinical pharmacy is being created.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Thewodros Leka, iun Grayston, Mashal Kamran, Biljana Markovic
The Carter report recommended that about 80% of hospital pharmacist time should be spent on the wards to provide clinical pharmacy services. However, in our hospital’s surgical specialty at the time of this report, it was found that only 33% of pharmacist’s time was spent on clinical pharmacy services. This had a negative impact on:
• rate of medication errors and near misses
• supply of critical medicines
• pharmacist participation in productive ward rounds
• timely discharge of patients home
The Pharmacy department made a successful business case to the Hospital executives to open a Satellite pharmacy to serve 4 surgical wards. The proposal was to recruit a dedicated clinical pharmacist and Medicines Management Technician, and set-up a dispensing satellite pharmacy.
The business case indicated that if funded, the new satellite pharmacy team would: • improve clinical pharmacy key performance indicators • improve patient safety • deliver a potential cost benefit Funding limitation was an obstacle and we have to convince the board.
We achieved 60−90% improvement in the objectives set in the business case as illustrated in Table 1 and 2. The pharmacy team won the annual quality improvement award of 2018. Table 1: Clinical Pharmacy Service improvement Clinical pharmacy services Service rate pre-satellite pharmacy Service rate post satellite pharmacy % of service improvement Medication errors 16/month 6/month 63% Pharmacist interventions 20/month 80/month 75% Pharmacist participation in ward round 6/month 50/month 88% Time to dispense discharge summaries 90 minutes/discharge summary 20 minutes/discharge summary 77% Number of patients counselled 15/month 75/month 80% Pharmacist available in the ward 1.5 hrs/day 7.5 hrs/day 80% Time taken to supply critical medicines 1 hour 5 minutes 91% Table 2: Potential Cost-benefit savings achieved Activities Cost-benefit savings/year (€) Reducing length of stay of patients €17,000 Reducing repeat dispensing €16,000 Effective use of nursing time €11,000 Reducing prescribing errors €103,000 Total Savings €147,000.
• Weekend working.
• Service improvements can be transferred to acute medical units and downstream medical wards. Reference Carter report.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Meenal Patel, Sheena Patel, Peta Longstaff
• Initiative introduced and on-going since 2017
• To increase and embed medication safety awareness
• To address under-reporting of medication-related incidents, with feedback
• To embed medication safety in education programmes and clinical practice
A local medication safety agenda implemented across two hospital sites in response to World Health Organisation (WHO) patient safety challenge ‘Medication without Harm’.
• Medication safety group (MSG) introduced with local strategy, involving junior medical staff for frontline feedback • Medication safety metrics changed to allow benchmarking with peers as per NHS Improvement’s Model Hospital data • ‘Plan, Do, Study, Act’ model applied to improve transfer of care from hospital to rehabilitation unit following external incidents • Monthly analysis of incidents with harm, exploring reasons for under-reporting • Optimisation of incident reporting system to improve staff feedback following investigations • Near miss error log introduced in pharmacy with shared learning • Mitigation of medication-related risks e.g. medications safe storage action plan • Medication safety bulletins, patient safety newsletters and top tips guide introduced covering focal themes • ‘Safe prescribing’ mandatory induction training for junior doctors to support prescribing of high risk medicines and compliance to patient safety alerts • Hospital-wide education on lessons learnt from incidents • Medication safety resources for staff to access • Nursing quality round on medication safety • Electronic missed doses realtime report developed to tackle omitted/delayed critical medication doses • Medication safety awareness (MSA) week held to increase awareness on focal themes
• Multidisciplinary MSG with assurance on meeting WHO global challenge. • Monthly analysis of medication safety data to allow learning, collaboration and benchmarking against peers. • Positive staff feedback on bulletins/newsletters with staff involvement/engagement. • Training programmes embedded with safe prescribing education. • Improved hospital safety metrics: Following MSA week, a 5% and 21% increase in medication-related incident reporting occurred at each site which has been sustained. Reporting rates doubled at one site following success of MSA week. • In 2018-19, local target achieved for reported medication-related incidents per 100,000 finished consultant episodes and medication-related incidents with harm
• Collaborative multidisciplinary working raising the profile of pharmacists acting as medication safety officers
• Implementing medication safety measures from NHS Patient Safety Strategy 2019
• Initiatives for safer culture, safer systems and safer patients
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.
Education and Research
ANTONIO PIRRONE, FEDERICA MILANI, LUCA CANCANELLI, VALENTINA MARINI , DANIELE MENGATO , ROBERTO LANGELLA , NICOLA REALDON
On October 5, 2017 the National Network of Italian Hospital Pharmacy School Students (ReNaSFO) was born with the aim to face the various critical aspects of post-graduate Hospital Pharmacy School (SHP), such as the need to make the different paths homogenous among regional SHPs, improve dialogue between colleagues and encourage a more informed approach focused to the training pathway for specialisation. In particular, little official information is available and hard to find about the different realities present in Italy.
“Compendium” project is designed to fill this lack and to gather information on post-graduate SHPs operating in Italy. In addition to outlining a summary description of the SHPs, the Compendium is configured as an official tool to respond and provide targeted information to near-graduates and graduates in Pharmacy (who often contact ReNaSFO) interested to approach the SHPs path.
Two project coordinators prepared a list of items submitted to representative ReNaSFO student in every 21 operating SHPs. The items refer to: available places and admission requirements, type of entry test, organisation of didactic lessons, exams and residency training, health facilities affiliated with SHP, potential availability of scholarships, useful links of the SHP or university. The help of universities was fundamental, in particular the helpfulness of SHP directors to collaborate with students.
As many as 18 SHPs out of 21 (85.71%) have joined the project: Bari, Bologna, Catania, Catanzaro, Camerino, Genoa, Florence, Milan, Modena and Reggio Emilia, Messina, Naples, Padua, Parma, Pisa, Rome, Siena, Turin and Sassari; of these, 14 schools have already sent their finished “Compendium” form.
Thanks to the widespread presence of associated ReNaSFO students, the initiative has immediately found interest and participation, reconfirming once again the active and unconditional collaboration between SHP students throughout Italy. Despite a heterogeneous situation between different SHPs, we keep working together hopeful to achieve national uniformity of SHPs and to improve educational objectives and training pathways.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Mathilde ROCHE, Niccolo CURATOLO, Marion ADLER, José POLO DEVOTO, André RIEUTORD
Many smoking patients are not identified as smokers when admitted at the hospital, depriving them of any help to quit smoking. During medication reconciliation at admission (MR), the pharmacist is in a position to identify smoking patients and then offer a support programme.
An integrated care model based on a smoking cessation programme was designed to assist smoking patients to quit tobacco. Pharmacy and addictology departments co-built and led the project. It was implemented and proposed to patients from May 2018 in three medical and surgical wards.
The project included five steps:
1. Training of one clinical pharmacist about smoking cessation by the addictology team.
2. Designing the process and developing tools used for a smoking cessation programme.
3. Implementing the programme.
4. Evaluating the pilot phase.
5. Developing a comprehensive training programme (including role-play sessions) for the pharmaceutical team.
The process counted six steps:
1. Smoking patients’ identification (MR, patient record, request from doctors). If the patient was polyaddicted, the addictology team was informed.
2. First patient visit: patient consent was collected, anamnesis related to tobacco and explanation about nicotine’s mechanisms and nicotine substitutes given. Appropriate nicotine substitutes were selected and tested with the patient.
3. Prescription and administration of nicotine substitutes.
4. Second patient visit (24 to 48 hours’ later): nicotine substitutes adjusted if needed.
5. Third patient visit if needed.
6. Discharge medication reconciliation.
During 4 months, 62 patients were identified as smokers during MR interviews. Twenty-seven per cent of the patients (n= 17) were sent to the addictology team because of polyaddiction, 39% (n=24) refused the programme and 34% (n=21) accepted to experience our support programme. Of these, 62% (n=13) either reduced or quit smoking during hospitalisation.
According to our encouraging preliminary results, this programme will continue to be carried on by the pharmaceutical team, while keeping a close link with the addictology team. We decided to call the patients one week and one month after discharge to better assess the performance of our smoking cessation programme.
