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.
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.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Oncology patients are often elderly and multi-medicated, with many physicians involved in their management. Their treatments can therefore often be changed while chemotherapy have a high risk of drug’s interactions. However, in our center, the length of patient stays and pharmaceutical resources are incompatible with the systematic achievement of reconciliation during hospitalization. In addition, more and more patients are benefiting from oral chemotherapy, outside any hospitalization. Besides, hematologists already offered teleconsultations to some patients, for their comfort and because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A pharmaceutical teleconsultation is now offered to our hematology patients in order to make the comprehensive list of medications taken, including self-medication, herbal medicines and food supplements. The comparison with the usual treatment in the medical record allows to update the patient file and prepares a proactive reconciliation.
A comparison and tests of the different reconciliation tools were carried out. The Hospiville® platform was chosen, also allowing remote and secure communication with retail pharmacies. Moreover, communication devices have been installed, such as webcams, headphones and microphones. This equipment was financed by our Regional Health Agency.
An appointment is offered to the patients listed on the weekly hematology teleconsultation schedule. Their usual pharmacy’s contact details are then requested.
Information collected from the medical file and from the pharmacy are provided on Hospiville®, then completed during the interview by Teams®. The pharmacist lists the prescribed medications, assesses the patient’s compliance and analyzes the interactions between drugs or complementary medicines. If necessary, the referring hematologist is contacted to adjust the drug’s management. Afterwards, the report of the teleconsultation is added to the medical file (Elios®).
By carrying out the consultation from home, patients report being more exhaustive in the information they provide. They also appreciate the short time needed and the easiness of speaking in familiar surroundings.
Thanks to scheduled teleconsultation, pharmacists further secure the patient’s medication path without disrupting the pharmacy’s activity. This experience will be used for the experiment “ORAL THERAPIES – home monitoring of patients on oral cancer drugs” in the French context of Article 51.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Mia P von Hallas, Trine RH Andersen
Physicians in acute wards have limited time to see all patients. Time for medication history, reconciliation and review is limited, due to great patient turnover. The physicians did not consider the pharmacist medication review alone as a contribution to the workflow or to relieve the high workload.
Through user surveys among the physicians in the Acute Ward, pharmacist tasks were adjusted to benefit the physician’s high work flow. Before the survey, pharmacists performed medication reviews which were communicated to the physician. The adjusted pharmacist tasks on the ward includes medication history, reconciliation and transfer of the medication to the electronic medicine module (Epic), securing up-to-date medicine data during hospitalisation.
A questionnaire was developed regarding four areas (Pharmacist competencies, Pharmacist tasks, Pharmacist medication review, Multidisciplinary teamwork) and distributed among the physicians. Based on the anonymous responses, the pharmacists adjusted their tasks to include medication history, medication reconciliation and transfer of medication to Epic, complying with the suggestions in the questionnaire survey. Obstacles were low percentage of respondents (15/33 (45%) prior to the initiative and 12/39 (31 %) after), and the large replacement of junior physicians in the period between surveys.
Pharmacists feel more part of the multidisciplinary team and attitudes towards the pharmacist service among physicians has changed. A new survey after implementation of the new workflow showed that 73% found medication reconciliation was a pharmacist task, compared to 29% before. After implementation, 90% of physicians believed that pharmacists could do medication review (67% before intervention). The acknowledgement that pharmacists were able to transfer medication to Epic was increased from 20% to 90%. The attitude has changed from considering pharmacists as medication advisers to considering pharmacists as part of the multidisciplinary team in the ward.
The questionnaire survey will be repeated annually to continually improve the workflow and contribution of clinical pharmacist services to the heathcare professional team in the acute ward.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Sarah POGGIO, Anne-Sylvie DUMENIL, Sandrine ROY, Claire HENRY
BPMH on admission has been performed in these departments since 2011. An analysis of the process and prescriber use of BPMH highlighted an underutilisation; average consultation rate was 29.8%. The main reasons were the online publishing interval of the BMPH and competition with the AC report which also displays medication. A previous study showed a 70% rate of patients with unintended differences between BMPH and the AC report.
We redesigned the pharmaceutical care process for programmed patient circuits in orthopaedic and visceral surgery by providing the “best possible medication history” (BPMH) in the patient’s electronical medical record (EMR) before anaesthesia consultation (AC).
Due to a lack of coordination, we exchanged using surgery with anaesthesia schedules to select patients, thus improving prioritisation. We created support documents for students, describing how to conduct a phone interview in order to reassure unfamiliar patients, to gather useful data (GP, pharmacy, prescription) to produce a BPMH, to visit inpatients when admitted to confirm the BPMH’s accuracy and to assess patient satisfaction with the process. We trained 6 students and presented our work at an anaesthetist staff meeting.
Among 195 patients included from June to October 2019, 70.2% BPMH before admission were successfully published online (137/195), 67 went through the complete care path (from home to discharging), 12 never came for AC and/or surgery, 58 were published but waiting for patient’s admission and 58 failed. The reasons we failed to publish on time included inability to reach patients (31.6%), lack of sources (21.1%), time shortage before AC (17.6%), surgery cancellation (14.0%) and refusal (7.3%). 1.58 (±0.85) calls were needed to reach a patient, 13 BPMH required modification after admission (19%), and patient satisfaction on average was 5.11/6 when asked whether the call, the medication management during hospitalisation and the confirmation interview went well. Finally, the consultation rate of BMPH evolved from 29.8% in 2017 to 72% since we changed practices.
Implementing this new process in the care path streamlines information transfer between the different stakeholders (anaesthetists, surgeons, pharmacists) and provides a better integration of pharmaceutical care in surgery wards as an efficient support system for prescribers.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Marie-Claire Jago-Byrne, Sinead McCool, Caroline Reidy, Stephen Byrne
Published research had demonstrated that 50% of discharge prescriptions were non-reconciled(1). A recent study demonstrated that 43% of patients experienced post-discharge medication errors(2). The prevalence of polypharmacy (>5 medications) has increased over the 15 years to 2012, from 17.8% to 60.4% in people 65 years and older in Ireland(3).
The aim of this project was to improve medication safety at the point of hospital discharge by using targeted medication reconciliation and producing a computer-generated prescription. This new model for discharge prescribing was introduced for patients who met both of the following criteria in two acute hospitals:
• Prescribed 9 or more medications, at the time of admission.
• Aged 70 years and over
The new model for discharge prescribing used collaborative medication reconciliation and the e-Discharge software to improve the quality of discharge prescriptions. The model was introduced in both hospitals and received support from community and hospital colleagues. Clinical pharmacists became the project champions and worked closely with medics during the change process. Key safety aspects were:
• Clinical double check for this high-risk process- the pharmacist and the doctor sign the prescription.
• Increased legibility
• Explanation for all prescription changes to community colleagues.
Phase 2: The software was further tested on 200 patients in a bench top exercise
Phase 1: The overall compliance with the national discharge prescription standards increased from 50.4% to 96.9% with the new model for discharge prescribing. The biggest change in compliance was observed in the three communication categories, which explain to community healthcare providers the rationale behind the medication changes made during the hospital stay. A user acceptability survey of HCP involved in the project demonstrated that all those involved had benefited from improved workflows in hospital and community settings, and more appropriate and efficient use of resources. All users requested expansion of this service.
Phase 2: This review allowed for the improvement of the e-Discharge Software using anonymised patient cases to test issues identified in Phase 1.
In Phase 3 the model will be introduced to a third hospital to evaluate transferability of the concept alongside current practice outlined above
Clinical Pharmacy Services
M. Cabré Serres, T. Aguilella Vicente, E. Julián Avila, D. Rodríguez Cumplido, J.M. Pepió Vilaubí, M. Muñoz-García
As a part of a multicentric medication reconciliation (MR) study in the fragile patient, one of the phases of the project included primary care reconciliation so we had to create alliances and enable effective communication channels between the two levels of care.
During 2015, we started using direct messaging between hospital pharmacist (HP) and primary care physician. The messaging tool, which is available in SIRE and ECAP programs, allows you to send messages to all physicians caring for the patient. It also allows you to contact the usual pharmacy of the patient. Physicians receive messages automatically during the patient’s clinical course.
When patients were medically discharged, the HP performed MR. The HP contacted the next provider to inform them of changes in the medication list and safety alerts. When the patient visited the doctor, he already had the pharmacotherapy summary and pharmaceutical recommendations in the patient’s electronic clinical course. Afterwards, the HP assessed if the pharmaceutical interventions (PIs) had been accepted.
We started using the tool in January 2015. We performed 205 discharge reconciliations and have sent 143 messages. This would be 0.7 PIs/patient. PIs have been: 26.6% (n=38) remove medication, 21.0% (n=30) monitor treatment, 21.0% (n=30) increase adherence, 11.2% (n=16) modify dose, 8.4% (n=12) add medication, 6.3%(n=9) modify posology and 5.6% (n=8) replace medication. Finally, 72.7% (n=104) of PIs have been accepted and 27.3% (n=39) rejected. We can also analyse population characteristics and the drugs involved in the PIs.
We are breaking barriers between hospital and primary care with nexus of the HP, who has begun to be part of the medical team. We want to continue in this direction to improve the results of our PIs. We want to determine if our PIs improve health outcomes. Another current problem in the transition of care is hyperprescription treatments with proton pump inhibitors or benzodiazepines. A de-prescription programme could be the next step.
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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
A. Navarro-Ruíz, C. Matoses-Chirivella, J.M. Del Moral-Sánchez, M. Morante, F.J. Rodríguez-Lucena, R. Gutiérrez-Vozmediano, A. Martínez-Valero, A. Andújar, E. García-Iranzo, A. Martí-LLorca
There is evidence of discontinuity medication between different health care levels. In fact, on admission to hospital, up to one in two patients has an incomplete medicine list , resulting in a medicine not being administered during the hospital stay. This situation could be associated with an increased risk of hospital readmission or adverse drug reaction (ADR). Some studies show that an elevated percentage of surgical patients take medications prior to surgery, cardiac medications principally, but almost 50% of the drugs are omitted on the day of surgery.
To develop a guideline to achieve the continuity of quality use of medicines between hospital and community in surgical patients.
The lack of medical evidence is reflected by the large variation in perioperative management recommendations among several group of experts. The recommendations in this guideline are to a large degree expert opinion, based on information from other reviews and textbooks, along with clinical experience. After a thorough review, the guide has obtained the consent of the Commission of pharmacy and therapeutics of the hospital.
The guide of conciliation of the medication includes a medication review structured according to the classification made by WHO ‘Anatomical, Therapeutic, Chemical classification system’. In each one of them, including the benefits and risks of continuing with this therapy during the perioperative process. It also includes various annexes, on antihypertensive, glucocorticoids and medicinal plants.
In the future, we would recommend prioritising the conciliation to the discharge with respect to other points of transition assistance, since the potential severity of an error of conciliation not intercepted the discharge of the patient is greater than if it occurs within the hospital.
