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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Mohammed Almeziny, Maha Aljuhanei , Fahad Alkharji
Smart infusion pumps have been introduced to prevent medication errors and they have been widely adopted by healthcare. They incorporate safeguards such as soft and hard dosage limits.
A smart pump was implemented in a tertiary hospital.
A task group was formulated from all involved parties to cover all issues related to practice, and it involved nursing and pharmacy staff to overcome all obstacles that may face the project; in addition the information technology (IT) department was involved to determine the facilitation of all technical issues. At the beginning the group faced two main barriers: creating the initial drug library which was a significant amount of work for the pharmacy, then uploading the drug library. In addition, all these works were to be carried out manually by the medical engineering. The quantitative data available from the smart pump software were used to improve drug library use. The team started to collect feedback from and communicate feedback to direct care nurses about drug library usage via e-mail, staff meetings, a “whatsapp” group and one-on-one conversations. This included asking nurses why the drug library was not being used regularly. The most frequent responses included “The pump is hard to use,” “The list doesn’t have the medications I need and, “It’s just easier to use the rate-based programming feature”.
The pump library usage percentage for total infusions was raised from a baseline of 2.85% to 30.97% in the first week. After careful review by the nursing, pharmacy, and medical leadership, some changes to the library were made. These included standardising drug concentrations in the pump library and providing ongoing staff education as well as implementing the best practices cited in the ISMP’s guidelines for the use of smart pumps; and running daily usage and weekly soft limit override reports from the pump library. Furthermore, a new category, “feeding”, was added to pump library; finally all medications and plain fluids were added to the pump library.
A Bar-Code Medication Administration System is needed (BCMA), to ensure the right patient gets the correct drug, dose and route at the right time.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Iván Maray Mateos, Miguel Alaguero Calero, Adrián Rodriguez Ferreras, Cristina Calzón Blanco, Cristina Álvarez Asteinza, Lucía Velasco Roces, Ana Lozano Blazquez
Intravenous drugs in the paediatric population bring up additional issues than the usual in adults. In their prescription, not only does the dose have to be adapted to the patient’s weight, the volume in which the drug is diluted must also be adapted to the reduced fluids requirement without jeopardising the stability of the mixture. In view of these facts, IV drug prescription in paediatrics implies a higher risk of medication errors. This new prescribing system simplifies prescription and reduces risks.
Development of an assisted prescription system of intravenous mixtures adapted to paediatric patients in which both the drug dose and the diluent volume are automatically calculated according to the patient’s weight.
A literature review of drug dosing in paediatrics and their stability in different diluents was performed. For every drug the following parameters were considered: maximum dose in children (mg/kg), maximum concentration allowed (mg/ml), common doses and volumes in adults. Using these values, a system was built which calculated drug dose and diluent volume according to the patient’s weight and the maximum concentration allowed for stability reasons. For safety and to ease the preparation, the diluent volume in millilitres was rounded up to the next 10. In order to avoid overdosing overweight or older paediatric patients, maximum dose and diluent volume were narrowed down to the usual quantities in adults. Ultimately, this system was integrated in the electronic prescription system. A protocol was created, named “drug name” IV mixture PEDIATRICS. So, by selecting this protocol in a specific patient, the target dose and the diluent volume are automatically calculated.
This system was implemented for 38 drugs. From July 2018 to April 2019, 910 IV mixtures have been prescribed from the following Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) groups: A02 Drugs for acid related disorders (39), J01 Antibacterials for systemic use (287), J02 Antimycotics for systemic use (3), J05 Antivirals for systemic use (8), A04 Antiemetics and antinauseants (175), N02 Analgesics (395), N03 Antiepileptics (3).
This method could be implemented in other electronic prescription programmes. The system must be updated by the Pharmacy Department, introducing new drugs and constantly reviewing stability databases, posology regimens, and information regarding dilution of parenteral drugs.
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
Gregorio Romero Candel, Paula Ruiz Belda, Maria del Carmen Caballero Requejo, Maria Jesus Sanchez Cuenca, Jose Marco del Rio , Julian Castillo Sanchez, Luna Carratala Herrera
In common clinical practice, the stability of medications is an area of interest to obtain maximum security and efficiency. After reconstitution and dilution, knowing the validity period is very important for the effectiveness and safety of the treatment, since it must be administered to the patient under the appropriate conditions. In recent years, a large number of high-impact cytostatic medicines with limited stability data have been registered and incorporated into clinical practice. Frequently, the stability data results are contradictory or insufficient. The main goal is to make a reliable quick guide of reference with the validity periods of the reconstituted and diluted active principles according to physicochemical stability, therefore increasing safety, reducing queries for these doubts and improving the management of unused remains that have high economic impact.
A cytostatic stability guide after reconstitution and dilution has been made. The active principles and commercial presentations that are used in the intravenous mixtures area were reviewed.
The obtaining of the physical-chemical stability data has been done by reviewing the information available in Stabilis, Pubmed, Lexicomp and technical data sheets.
Fifty-four pharmaceutical specialities from 44 active principles, all in the cytostatic group, were checked. Tables of reference for the elaboration sites were made for consultation. It has reduced the number of consultations conducted and improved the time of preparation of these products. The rest of the elaborations for other administrations have been taken advantage of, making a better use of the pharmacotherapeutic resources.
The next step is to keep developing consultation tools that improve the safety and management of hospital drugs.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Gregorio Romero Candel, Esther Domingo Chiva, Laura Rodenas Herraez, Cristina Urbano, Jose Marco del Rio, Nieves Cuenca Cano, Maria Jesus Sanchez Cuenca, Antonio Sanz Arrufat, Ana Valladolid Wals, Angel Escudero Jimenez
In the areas of critically ill patients such as emergency, intensive care and resuscitation, the use of intravenous drugs (IV) in “Y” are common in clinical practice. Stability and physical-chemical compatibility of IV drugs admistered in “Y” are important, affecting directly the safety of patients and the therapeutic efficacy of medicines, which can lead to medication errors (ME). A quick reference chart was developed in order to facilitate the administration of these drugs and reduce errors in these areas.
A chart for quick reference of compatibility of drugs in “Y” for the most commonly used drugs in the areas of critically ill patients of our hospital.
It was a team composed of a doctor specializing in emergency medicine, a nurse and two hospital pharmacists. Economic management of pharmacy program Farmatools® was used to obtain the list of drugs most consumed and those most relevant and specific of these areas were selected.
A chart was made where the header of the rows and the columns was the list of drugs in the study. Finally, we conducted a systematic research on Micromedex® “Y” compatibility with each drug with the remaining, completed the chart with a visual color code: green (compatible), red (incompatible), white (not tested) and orange (precaution, existence of various stability dilutions and consult your pharmacist).
The elaboration and implementation of this table will provide a fast and visual consultation instrument to nurses before the administration of drugs in “Y”. This tool intended to facilitate decision-making, contributing to increase the effectiveness of the drugs and avoid possible adverse reactions in patients, increasing the quality of care and lowering the ME.
We are still working on the same areas to increase safety in drug therapy in critical care. Currently, that improvement measures that are being developed are: new pharmacotherapeutic protocols specifically for those units: high risk medications perfusion protocols and new safety guidelines.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Nuria Monteagudo-Martínez, Ana Valladolid-Walsh, Gregorio Romero-Candel, Esther Domingo-Chiva, Jose Marco-del Río, Marca Diaz-Rangel, Francisca Sanchez-Rubio
To acquire clinical skills in this setting and detect and prevent medication errors. It is also an area in which pharmacists had previously never participated in our hospital and it was an opportunity to integrate in this multidisciplinary team.
Hospital pharmacy specialization programs include one year of rotations in clinical areas. The emergency department (ED) was chosen in order to develop a program to detect and prevent medication errors as a part of a multidisciplinary team.
Other tasks such as organizing drug storage, drug labelling and conservation, nurse counselling and education on issues related to medication were developed.
The pharmacy resident completed a rotation period based on the national educational program in clinical areas. Over a two month rotation period she reviewed treatments (61 patients, detecting 67 medication errors), organized and labelled drug storage, listed and identified thermolabile drugs, participated in a protocol design,…
The resident was able to improve care in acute patients in the ED. The most common errors found and prevented were: missed doses (25.3%); incorrect form to administer the drug (incompatibility diluent, infusion rate…) (13.4%); drug interaction/incompatibility (8.9%) and others.
The resident was able to organized refrigerator drug stored and developed a protocol to explain how to act in case of fridge failure.
To try to implement an ED-based clinical pharmacist program in order to detect and manage medication errors to improve safety in drug therapy, as well as to contribute to patient care with a different point of view from clinicians.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Paula Arrabal-Durán, Carmen Herrero-Domínguez-Berrueta, María Norberta Sánchez-Fresneda, Ana Mur-Mur, Ana Herranz-Alonso, María Sanjurjo-Sáez
MI and PI are normally recorded in Hospital Pharmacy Services as a method for evaluating safety. Nevertheless, classical methods for reporting MI do not allow for a correct classification in the field of clinical trials. The reason is their more complex processes involving drugs compared to the processes in daily clinical practice. If there are no specific categories, the information obtained by recording usually gets lost and could not reflect exactly what occurred. In September 2016, a clinical tool to notify MI and PI was implemented in the Pharmacy Service, with the aim of unifying their classification criteria and gathering complete information for analysis and further implementation of improvement measures.
A database to notify medication incidents (MI) and pharmaceutical interventions (PI) in the Clinical Trials Unit was developed in the Pharmacy Service of a tertiary hospital.
All the processes involving drugs in clinical trials were evaluated by a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). For each process, the possible incidents and their resulting effects on the patient were recorded. After that, a database was designed in Microsoft® Access with defined lists of choices to allow pharmacists notify both MI and PI that occur in the Clinical Trials Unit.
A database with the following information has been implemented:
a) Identification of the MI:
1. Date of the MI.
2. Number of patient.
3. Clinical Trial protocol.
4. Investigational product.
b) Process in which the MI took place (16 options).
c) Process in which the MI was detected (16 options).
d) Process that caused the MI (24 options).
e) Person who detected the MI (9 options).
f) Did any PI take place? (Yes/No).
g) PI performed (12 options).
h) Did the MI reach the patient? (Yes/No).
i) MI that reached the patient (21 options).
j) Patient outcome (8 options).
k) Effect in the clinical trial (4 options).
The implemented notification system will be further expanded and adapted over time.
Future aim is to analyse MI for establishing improvement measures and checking their results.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
C. Bilbao Gómez-Martino, M.I. Borrego Hernando, A. Santiago Pérez, M.P. Pacheco Ramos, A.E. Arenaza Peña, L. Zamora Barrios, E. Rodríguez del Río, J.C. Tallón Martínez, Á. Nieto Sánchez, M.L. Arias Fernández
MR has been proven to reduce medication errors at admission. If there are no electronic records of PCM, the information obtained by MR usually gets lost and could lead to repetition of errors.
We provided electronic updated reports of patients’ current medications (PCM) after performing medication reconciliation (MR) at admission, although the electronic medical record (EMR) is not yet developed in our hospital.
The procedure, designed in the framework of a pilot MR programme, was gradually implemented in three hospitalisation units: internal medicine, geriatrics and oncology.
In order to make the medication reconciliation reports (MRR) reliable, the pharmacist consulted primary care prescriptions and at least two other independent sources of information, such as: emergency department’s admission report, previous clinical reports, self-reported medication list or the medication itself, if possible. The information was confirmed by a standardised clinical interview. Medication discrepancies were clarified by specific closed ended questions. The rest of treatment was investigated by open ended questions.
MRR included current chronic medication, relevant medications administered on demand, herbal medicines used for therapeutic purposes and other relevant data (inappropriate medications, interactions, dysphagia, adherence). Sources of information were also detailed.
MRR were integrated within the electronic hospitalisation reports, which were easily accessible via the hospital intranet.
At discharge, printed copies of reports were handled to patients.
99 MRR were recorded. 751 PCM were registered and 183 MR errors (MRE) were detected.
We contribute to the ‘best possible medication history’ of patients. This initiative might have improved patient safety by reducing discharge and readmission MRE, although it has not yet been measured.
We enhanced the pharmacist’s role in the multidisciplinary team.
This model of electronic MRR could become a useful reference for healthcare professionals, until the EMR is implemented. The next aim is to register MRR and all pharmaceutical care information in the EMR to improve our patients’ healthcare.
