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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Theodora Steindl-Schönhuber, Gittler G.
Medication dispensing is a time-consuming, labour-intensive, error-prone process in the daily routine on the wards. The project was triggered by the tight personnel situation during the Coronavirus pandemic: In November 2020 three wards with COVID-19 patients (91 beds) were integrated into our Unit Dose blister service to assist the nursing staff. A multidisciplinary effort (management, IT-department, doctors, nursing staff, pharmacy holding a GMP-manufacturer´s certificate) and long-established electronic patient records including medication data enabled fast realisation.
After transformation back to a chirurgical, an internal and a geriatric ward the service was continued and extended to the neurological unit (49 beds) due to positive feed-back. We wanted to study the observed positive effects of Unit Dose supply in more detail.
In our hospital medication distribution has been switched from manual dispensing by ward staff to automated Unit Dose blister packaging by the pharmacy. Our study investigates the impacts of this change on medication safety, staff satisfaction, time and drug resources.
The percentage of pharmacy-blistered drugs, time gain for nursing staff, employee satisfaction, medication consumption and erroneous blister fillings were investigated.
Unit Dose in hospitals is not standard for many countries and is so far unique in Austria. Therefore, we would like to share our experiences and findings with our colleagues: Solid, oral dosage forms could be supplied by 99% via Unit Dose. Time for manual drug dispensing was reduced by 75%. A survey showed high employee satisfaction with the supply process as well as the quality and correctness of the blisters. Consumption of blisterable drugs and stocks on the ward were reduced by 44% and 78%, respectively. Errors in blister fillings in our setting amount to 0,006%. When compared to literature references on error rates for manual medication dispensing (up to low double-digit rates), patients benefit from increased drug therapy safety. On the basis of these results our initiative was granted the Austrian Patient Safety Award 2021 in the field of medication safety.
We plan to extend Unit Dose to the remaining wards and to investigate patient satisfaction with the blisters, cost-efficiency and distribution of high-cost medications.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Robert Baghdarsarian, Karin Hellström, Mattias Paulsson
The health care providers at the Paediatric Emergency Ward discovered that when opening glass ampoules of morphine by snapping the top off, this did not result in the normal straight cut by the score. A close examination also revealed residual glue and the glass at the ampoule neck not being fully transparent. The sealed outer packaging also seemed manipulated for most of the morphine ampoules stored in the ward medication room. Simultaneously, staff discovered that one of the paediatric patients had not received the anticipated analgesic effect of the ordered morphine infusion.
This case report describes how the compounding unit of Uppsala University Hospital (CU) was able to assist in analysing the contents of morphine glass ampoules and infusion solutions, in a case with suspected tampered containers
CU has invested in an easy-to-use spectrophotometer to check the concentration and identity of chemotherapy prepared in the clean rooms. The primary focus is to have an independent system to check preparations done by the chemotherapy robot e.g. in connection with software upgrades. This equipment was within hours adapted to be used for morphine analyses. The results clearly show that the infusion labelled 10 mg/mL was tampered with, containing only 0,4 mg/mL morphine. Samples were also sent to the Microbiological laboratory to check for risks for microbial exposure during infusion of tampered morphine.
CU was able to provide results of the contents of all ampoules, and the infusion solution administered to the patient, within a couple of hours and without any cost. The results showed that all ampoules had been emptied from its labelled contents and likely refilled with Sodium Chloride 9 mg/mL. The infusion solution given to patient was also likely prepared from a tampered ampoule. These results were crucial information in the conversation with parents about the incident, and the subsequent report to the police regarding the probable violence offence.
We recommend that all healthcare settings evaluate the possibility to collaborate closer with the hospital pharmacy, and in new ways.
Thanks to our CU being an integral part of the hospital with close interaction with wards, this rapid handling was possible to stage.
Education and Research
Fionnuala Nevin, Gail Melanophy, Aisling Collins, Miriam Moriarty, Grainne Courtney, Tamasine Grimes, Gaye Stephens
The available literature strongly advocates the importance of training for users of electronic prescribing systems to ensure their safe and effective use. However, there is a lack of evidence to demonstrate the effect that ongoing training has on the use and impact of these systems. This study was carried out to strengthen the case for staff training resources for electronic prescribing systems.
A study was carried out to investigate the effect of a training intervention on the prevalence of prescribing errors found in an outpatient electronic prescribing system currently in use. Audit and feedback methods were used. Prescription audits were carried out before and after the delivery of a classroom-based training intervention. The audits were used to measure and analyse the effect of the intervention on prescribing errors found in the electronic prescribing system. A questionnaire and clinician observations were carried out with prescribers. The pre-intervention audit results, questionnaire, and clinician observations were used to inform the prescriber training intervention.
Key stakeholders were recruited and assisted in the planning and delivery of the study methods. This was to ensure participate buy-in and study success. The audit tools and questionnaire were initially piloted to test their design, and allow adjustments to be made based on feedback received.
The prevalence of prescribing errors was significantly reduced, following the delivery of the training intervention. Statistically significantly more medications prescribed during the pre-intervention audit contained one or more errors when compared with the post-intervention audit (28.6% versus 9.2%, p < 0.05). Most errors found were deemed to be system-related errors.
The study demonstrates the positive impact that ongoing training can have on users’ interactions with an electronic prescribing system. Electronic prescribing systems are being increasingly considered and implemented in healthcare settings internationally. The results of this study could be used to inform the planning for training interventions to be delivered as part of ongoing system maintenance. The study stands to inform those managing electronic prescribing projects that, despite initial training, errors can still occur and must be addressed. This study supports the need to provide adequate training resources for users of electronic prescribing systems.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
A. Valladolid-Walsh, E. Domingo-Chiva, P. Cuesta-Montero, J.A. Monsalve-Naharro, E.M. García-Martínez, S. Plata-Paniagua, M.D. Pardo-Ibañez, G. Romero-Candel, J.M. Jiménez-Vizuete, R. Peyró-García
To determine the incidence of medication errors in our environment and implement enhancement systems to prevent them, which is a priority for the improvement of the drug treatment process in critically ill patients.
A clinical pharmacist was integrated on a full time basis into the multidisciplinary team of an anaesthesia intensive care unit (ICU).
The project was carried out in 3 different stages:
– First stage: a prospective observational study was carried out over 1 month to detect medication errors in anaesthesia ICU and to determine the baseline situation before the pharmacist´s intervention. During this stage, 36.27% errors were detected in overall treatments.
– Second stage (intervention stage): Over 10 months, the pharmacist reviewed the prescriptions of all patients admitted to the anaesthesia ICU, performing the appropriate interventions regarding medications. Furthermore, to educate physicians and nursing staff, we organised educational meetings, and also pharmacotherapeutic protocols and guidelines of medication administration were created to standarise clinical practice. Finally, a system for reporting medication errors was introduced.
– Third stage: a prospective observational study was carried out for 1 month to detect medication errors after the pharmacist’s intervention. During this stage, 5.9% of errors were detected in overall treatments.
– Medication errors were reduced by more than 30%.
– A pharmacist is now part of the multidisciplinary team in the ICU.
– The experience has been broadcast to the national level to promote the implementation of clinical pharmacist activities in our environment.
We are still working on the same areas to improve safety in drug therapy in critically ill patients. Currently, improvement measures that are being developed are: new pharmacotherapeutic protocols specifically for this unit; drugs and drug-diluent compatibility guidelines; new training sessions; standarised medication kits in operating rooms and implementation of the computerised prescription; and a new labelling system for syringes.
Production and Compounding
The preparation of cytotoxic drugs perfusions can be accompanied by errors that can be fatal to some patients. Several methods were tested to minimise the risk of errors associated with reconstitution of cytotoxic perfusions (camera, HPLC, analytical balance, the presence of a second technician to monitor his colleague). All of these methods can be expensive and are not available to all hospital pharmacists.
We present a simple and effective method that we have developed in our hospital to solve the problem of reconstitution errors.
Errors of cytotoxic drugs reconstitution can have catastrophic consequences for patients. Some studies have found that the incidence of major and minor errors were, respectively, 0.19% and 0.26%. Reconstitution control methods are numerous but not always accessible to all hospital pharmacists and preparers, particularly in developing countries.
This work involves the development of a computer application developed from an Open Source voice recognition software. The daily chemotherapy protocols are entered in the application that dictates to a technician the protocol prescribed by the physician, product by product, for all patients. The technician performs the cytotoxic preparations in the order in the centralised pharmaceutical unit for the preparation of cytotoxic drugs and he communicates with the application manually or by speaking.
The application begins with the patient’s ID, name and surname, the first drug, the dosage, the dilution solution and the volume of this solution. Then, it passes to the second product and so on. In the case of an observation, the application warns the technician to take this observation into account.
This application has helped provide better assistance to the technicians and pharmacists in the reconstitution of cytotoxic drugs, and no event or error has been detected to date.
To make a large number of reconstructions using this application to assess its effectiveness and install it in other hospitals who handle cytotoxic drugs.
