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
Marijana Fortuna, Petra Tavčar, Jure Dolenc, Monika Sonc
To support us in understanding our role in the preparation of chemotherapy products. To prevent the risk of harm to patients. Recognise prescribed error in pre-documented chemotherapy protocols
Cytostatics are carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic drugs. Handling requires a number of organisational and technical systems. All products should be safely and accurately prepared with special care to ensure the highest possible product quality, correct dose, the right patient, the right medicine, the right carrier solutions and right administration, without microbiological and particle contamination. The prescription and preparation of cytostatic drugs must be closely monitored. The most important factor in achieving this is the constant training of pharmacists in pharmaceutical techniques.
This year started with monthly reviews and training in the following subjects by using a written algorithm. Risk to product: Drugs reconstitution negative pressure isolators, leakage/damage or defects of vials, particles, transport and storage. Risk to patient: Incorrect calculations, microbiological contamination, incorrect administration, extravasation, incorrect administration route, incorrect labelling. Risk to operators: Contamination, toxicity, equipment, gloves, cleaning, occupational exposure. All checks have been made throughout the whole of preparation process, adhering to standard operating procedures (SOP-s).
We concluded that continuing education by using a writhen algorithm is useful practice. It helps prevent automatic work, remind us to check each step in process and know how to recognise errors in chemotherapy prescriptions and preparation. In 25 cases of prescribed chemotherapy, intervention of a pharmacist was required. In 5 cases of chemotherapy preparation, pharmaceutical techniques have detected a discrepancy in the prescribed therapy.
Regardless of experience at work, it is necessary to constantly repeat how to work properly, and awareness why we are doing this.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Bernie Love, Tracy McFadden, Patrick Martin, Val Connolly, Deirdre Brennan, Michelle Griffin, Danielle Bracken, Siobhan Maguire, James Carr
Avoidable harm caused by medication is one of the most commonly reported adverse events in healthcare settings.
Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown launched a formal Medication Safety Programme in November 2017 by appointing a Medication Safety Facilitator and establishing a multidisciplinary Medication Safety Committee to promote and support the safe use of medications. The Medication Safety Committee undertook a number of activities to establish the programme in the hospital.
-An evidence-based literature review to define and guide the scope, breadth and direction of the programme. -A baseline in-depth analysis of locally reported medication incidents (2016/2017) on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) was conducted to identify initial targets for improvement. Analysis was undertaken using NCC-MERP, a recognised and validated tool used specifically for medication incidents. -An annual work-plan, incorporating necessary elements of a medication safety programme, was devised by the committee defining goals for the year.
Safety Culture: • Prominent commitment from hospital management to medication safety. • Investigations into medication errors aligned to a just and fair systems approach. • Promotion and encouragement of medication safety reporting and learning with a Medication Safety Awareness Day. • Implementation of the ‘Know, Check, Ask’ campaign to enhance medication safety by empowering patients. Governance: • Organogram updated to reflect reporting relationship of new committee. • Medication Safety made standing item at Quality & Safety Executive meetings. • Annual report submitted to Hospital Executive Committee Measurement & Monitoring of medication incidents: • Quarterly report produced and disseminated to front-line staff tracking and trending medication incidents including narratives. • Performance indicators established for: -No. of incidents reported (2018 reporting increased by 32% over 2017); -Reporter of incidents; -Category of harm; -Stage of medication use process where incidents have occurred. Education & Training: • Regular face-to-face education sessions arranged with front-line staff. • Quarterly medication safety bulletin devised and disseminated, informed by audit findings and incident reports. • The successful Medication Safety Minute initiative from St James’s Hospital was adopted and implemented, with content informed by local incidents. Development, Updating and Dissemination of PPPGs. • New IV drug administration guides (n=53) developed and updated. • Introduction of one-page ‘Medicines Information Sheet’ as quick reference guides for key topics. • DOAC prescription and administration guide developed and circulated. Audit: • Audit programme established informed by incident analysis, complaints and best-practice including introduction of an ‘audit window’ to gather hospital-wide data. Quality Improvement: • Informed by incident analysis, best-practice and audit findings, a number of moderate-high leverage quality improvement projects were initiated including removal of concentrated potassium from general clinical areas, introduction of an insulin & glucose monitoring record and introduction of an automated dispensing cabinet for out-of-hours access to medication.
The structural aspects established for the Medication Safety Programme have been successful in establishing a programme in the hospital and are reproducible by other centres.
Work continues in Connolly Hospital to identify themes of incidents, audit of practice and implementation of quality improvement initiatives.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Luis Pérez de Amezaga Tomás, María Magdalena Parera Pascual, Mónica Sanz Muñoz, Catalina March Frontera, Gonzalo González Morcillo, Alejandra Mandilego Garcia, Álvaro Medina Guerrero, Ana Filgueira Posse, Montserrat Vilanova Boltó
Administration of intravenous KCl produces hyperkalaemia and this can result in cardiac arrest and death. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) as well as other security agencies have recommended the withdrawal of KCl 2M from ward stock. This project was born as a response to these recommendations. We focused on a group of patients where these practices have not been extensively implemented. The aim of the protocol was to standardise the prescription, preparation, dispensation and administration of KCl to neonates in our hospital.
Development of a protocol that standardises diluted potassium intravenous solutions for neonates (including those preterm over 28 weeks of gestation). This allowed us to remove concentrated potassium chloride (KCl) 2M from neonatal care units in our hospital. For this purpose, the hospital pharmacy centralised the preparation and distribution of KCl ready-to-use infusions.
The elaboration of the protocol took place as follows: • A multidisciplinary team designed KCl ready-to-use solutions that met the requirements of the newborn: – Glucose 10% 250mL with 5 mEq KCl (20mEq/L solution) – Glucose 10% 250mL with 10 mEq KCl (40mEq/L solution). • The hospital pharmacy centralised the preparation of these solutions. A risk assessment was performed and determined an expiration date of 7 days. • These solutions were stocked at all neonatal care units: Intensive Care Unit, Hospitalized Paediatric Unit and Paediatric Emergency Unit. • Weekly, the hospital pharmacy distributes these solutions and disposes of the expired ones. • Only ready-to-use KCl solutions were able to prescribe at the electronic prescription programme. • A formation plan was implemented to train all the professionals involved in neonatal care.
The protocol was implemented in November 2016. Since then, 65 patients have been treated with 20mEq/L solution and only 1 patient with 40mEq/L solution. No remarkable imbalances in electrolytes have been detected resulting from the standardisation of the fluid therapy with KCl. Only 3 incidents have been registered. All of them were prescription errors (solution selection); they reached the patient but without damage.
Nowadays, we are developing a stability study of the KCl solutions in order to assess the appropriateness of the expiration date.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
M. T. Barrera, O. Carrascosa, P. Madrid, A. Aguado, R. Martínez , N. Argüello, E. Cuellar, M. Vela, C. Jimenez, S. Payan, O. Sánchez
Lack of stock delays medication administration by nurses. This situation also generates hospital warden displacements to Pharmacy Service and telephone interruptions of Pharmacy technicians’ work. The main aim was to amend stock lack management to improve patient security during medication preparation and administration. The secondary objectives were: reduce interruptions of other health professionals and automate warehouse exits, avoiding errors of manual updating of Pharmacy stock.
This tool is part of “Safe Medication Administration in Hospitalization/Avoid Interruptions” project. A “button” was included in the nursing administration view of the electronic prescription programme, which when activated automatically generates a request to the Pharmacy Service for a dose of required medication. Hospital Information Systems were contacted for the design. All requests generated during the administration of medication were automatically received in Pharmacy Service. They were grouped by plant, listed, deducted from stock and dispensed at the agreed times.
The tool was developed by Hospital Information Systems, in collaboration with nursing, and staff training was carried out for correct handling of the tool. Also, medication dispensing schedules were agreed with the hospital warden. 15 days before tool implementation, the Pharmacy Service analysed all medication requests made from hospitalisation. Data collected were: plant and shift requested, reason, existence of pattern, requested medication, requested units, notice to auxiliaries to collect medication. After the first week of implementation, the same assessment of requests was made during the same period to compare and evaluate the impact of this tool implementation.
When both periods were compared, prescribed medication requests decreased from 198 to 15, this difference being statistically significant (Fisher’s exact test p=0.008). This difference meant significant reduction of interruptions in Pharmacy technicians’ daily work. Requests reasons were lack of dose in 43.4% (n=95) of cases, immediate prescriptions in 29.2% (n=64) of cases and treatment change in 20.5% (n=45) of cases. 29.2% of all requested medications belonged to the antimicrobial and antiviral group. 62% (n=135) of the total requests were received in the morning shift. Hospital warden displacements were significantly reduced when comparing both periods from 102 to 3 (Chi square test, p=0.006). This meant a significant reduction in interruptions in hospital warden work. It has been possible to standardise and improve efficiently nursing management of medication stock lack.
The incidents technical improvement is pending, as well as training of new nursing staff. It is possible to implement this tool in all hospital units that have electronic prescription.
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
José Marco-del Río, María Luisa Ibarra-Mira, Gregorio Romero-Candel, Ana Ramirez-Córcoles, Ana Valladolid-Walsh, Francisco Tomás Pagán-Nuñez
Our main goal was to improve patient’s safety, because we noticed that many patients did not take actually all the drugs that were prescribed by the physicians, and other times there were drugs that the patients were taking because they had an active prescription, but they were not supposed to. Additionally, we aimed to improve the drug-related information that the patients take home.
A programme which includes every patient admitted into the Internal Medicine department. It consists of three steps: clarification of chronic medication that the patients are taking, we handle them and updated schedule of their drugs upon discharge and we check the coherence with the active prescriptions.
We interview the patients during the admission in order to clarify and update the chronic medication that they are taking. When a patient is about to be discharged, the nurses call us, so at this moment we talk to the physician to know what changes are going to be made on the medication. To coordinate with the physicians and nurses, we had two meetings in which we established the timing of the programme, so the patients don’t have to wait too long for us. When we know the changes that the physician is going to make, we update the medication schedule to handle it to the patients or their family, and we explain to them the changes and how they should manage the new drugs. If any discrepancy or medication-related problem is detected, we talk to the physician to solve it.
In the last four months, we performed 180 discharges and we solved together with the physicians 20 discrepancies. Patients are now receiving more comprehensive information about their treatment.
To continue with the programme and broaden it to the rest of our hospital departments. Also we are working on a way of uploading our pharmacy schedules to the electronic medical record of the patients, so they can be available for every healthcare worker, which would improve even more the transitions of care.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Noelia Vicente Oliveros, María Muñoz García, Álvaro Ruigomez Saiz, Montserrat Ferre Masferrer, Teresa Bermejo Vicedo, Eva Delgado Silveira, Lucía Quesada Muñoz, Ana María Alvarez-Diaz
An analysis of the indicators of the perioperative process reflected the need to improve their quality. One of the causes of scheduled surgery cancellation was the lack of the follow up of the anaesthetist’s medication recommendations. Medications need to be carefully managed to prevent perioperative complications.
We designed and implemented a flow chart to ensure the patient compliance of anesthetist’s medication recommendations prior to surgery. We designed a protocol for the perioperative medication management.
A multidisciplinary group was formed with the management of the hospital and representatives of all the services involved in the perioperative process. The group designed the flow chart of the process by consensus. Patients were candidates to enter in this process if they were on treatment with anticoagulant or 2 or more medications from the following groups: antiplatelet, antihypertensives, antidiabetics. A pharmacist called by phone three times (the day before, the day of medication change, and the day after) to the patient to ensure the compliance of anaesthetist recommendations. If there was a lack of compliance, the pharmacist contacted the surgeon who was in charge of deciding if the surgery procedure continued as scheduled. Moreover, the domiciliary medication of these patients were reconcilliated and recorded in their health record. Healthcare professionals could consult it during hospital stay. The group designed a protocol for the perioperative medication management with different medical specialists.
The project started in April 2019. The pharmacist called patients with scheduled surgery of lower limbs. A total of 31 patients benefited from the new flow chart. The pharmacist detected 38 medication errors; two involved errors concerning the suspension of anticoagulant drugs prior to surgery and four implied antihypertensive drugs. Once, it was necessary to contact the surgeon. In this case, the surgeon decided to continue with the surgery as schedule. Fifty-seven medications suffered a change in the period between the anaesthestic visit and the surgery, nine of them belonged to the monitored medication group.
The next steps are to spread the flow chart to other patients, to distribute the protocol among hospital healthcare professionals and to implement a procedure for the reintroduction of the modified medication.
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
Imke Willrodt, Delia Bornand, Jimena Ramos, Stojan Petkovic, Giulia Mohr, Anne Leuppi-Taegtmeyer
Due to critical incidents involving opioids reported internally at the University Hospital Basel in 2018, there was an urgent need to evaluate underlying reasons for these events. The Opioid AG was established with the aim to mitigate risks for the correct prescription and application of opioids, and therefore to improve patient safety.
The Opioid Working Group at the University Hospital Basel is an interdisciplinary working group including representatives from different professions (physicians, nurses, pharmacists) and departments (medical, surgery, gynaecology, emergency, pain therapy, palliative care, pharmacology and toxicology, patient safety and information technology).
The thorough analysis of root causes for the critical incidents revealed prescribing and application errors, such as non-observance of kidney failure, pharmacodynamic interactions of opioids with other prescribed drugs, inadvertent overdosing – in particular with liquid drug formulations, or patient mix-ups.
Consequently, the following steps are being taken to address these risks: 1. Optimisation of the prescribing software including opioid prescription templates, links to existing opioid unit conversion tables for liquid forms of diamorphine, morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone (milligrams to millilitres) as well as clearer display of “as required” opioid prescriptions on the patients’ electronic drug charts. 2. Preparation of Standard Medication Preparation Schemes for nursing staff of the emergency department. 3. Development of an additional label (concentration, patient initials, date of reconstitution, date of expiry of reconstituted solution) for parenteral diamorphine. 4. Improvement in detailed written instructions for the correct preparation, labelling, application and disposal of intravenous and oral drugs (to include opioids). 5. Evaluation of a hospital opioid safety self-assessment tracking tool.
A comprehensive evaluation will take place, 6 months after the implementation of all measures. We will use the number of naloxone prescriptions on the wards as a key performance indicator to measure the success of this project. The reported critical incidents involving opioids will also be assessed before and after the implementation of all measures.
This evaluation will help to identify open questions, potential gaps and further needs for improvement to be addressed by the interdisciplinary team.
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.
