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.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Carlos Santos Rodríguez, Silvia Irene Corrales Vargas, Maria de los Ángeles Peña Peloche, Alfredo Julian Jover Sáenz, Miguel Ángel Ramos Gil, Arturo Morales Portillo, Marta Mir Cros, Francisco Ignacio Torres Bondia, Lluis Marqués Amat, Joan Antoni Schoenenberger Arnaiz
Beta-lactam antibiotics are the most commonly used group of antimicrobial drugs but are also the ones with the most significant induction of allergic reactions. However, it is known that many of these patients do not present reactions upon rechallenge or have false allergy warnings in the medical records.
To assess the impact of a pharmacist-driven programme for active beta-lactam allergy warning removal in adults in collaboration with the Allergology service.
We identified adults with active beta-lactam allergy warnings among outpatients aged 35 to 45 years over 26 months.
Both in the hospital and primary care setting the pharmacist assessed the current information of the cases in the electronic medical records (EMR) and through personal interviews or by telephone. The following data were retrieved: year of allergy registration, type of reaction described, tolerance of beta-lactam antibiotics, and the existence of Allergology reports.
The pharmacist, previously trained by the Allergology service, could proceed to remove or confirm the allergy label, if applicable, or refer the patient to the Allergology service for allergy tests.
We reviewed a total of 1178 cases with active beta-lactam allergy warnings. The most frequently implicated beta-lactam drug was amoxicillin, with 170/1178 (14.4%) cases.
111/1178 (9.4%) of cases had an allergic reaction in childhood, and in 714/1178 cases (60.6%) EMR did not describe the symptomatology or treatment that justifies the allergy.
The allergy warning was directly removed in 93/1178 (7.9%) of patients, as they had previous reports of Allergology, had tolerated antibiotics after the allergic reaction, or did not present symptoms compatible with an allergic reaction.
The review confirmed allergic warnings in 43/1178 (3.65%) cases, according to the symptomatology and the information recorded in the Allergology reports.
One thousand and forty-two cases were referred for beta-lactam allergy test performance in the allergology service, of which 47% yielded a negative result.
The pharmacist is qualified to remove the warning in cases with a doubtful allergy to beta-lactam antibiotics after a thorough medical record review and informed consent. Moreover, the pharmacist can provide valuable information that allows the classification of warnings according to the detected risk and facilitates subsequent decision-making by the allergist.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Linda Jeffery, Maria Grønkjær Abrahamsen, Anja Alrø Bøtkjær, Lotte Aggergaard, Ann Brit Andersen
Our country has a national SMR for every citizen. The SMR shows the current medication that the citizen has been prescribed, from all sectors. All sectors can see the SMR, which is considered/ought to be the ‘truth’ about the patient’s medication. On discharge from the hospital the SMR is updated by the doctor. Afterwards, pharmacy technicians dispense medicines for discharge. The technicians, at this stage, often find discrepancies in the SMR compared to the medication prescribed and given during admission. The SMR is electronically updated but not adequately reconciled. False information in the SMR may ultimately lead to adverse drug safety events in the primary sector.
The regional hospital pharmacy patient safety network studied how many patients do not have a reconciled electronic Shared Medication Record (SMR) at discharge, despite the doctor having electronically updated it.
The technician recorded the discrepancies found before contacting the doctor to get the SMR corrected.
Each discrepancy was reported into the national patient safety database.
The technicians do not dispense medicines to all discharged patients, so our results were extrapolated to all discharged patients in the time period (there was no reason to expect bias).
The study was carried out in the whole region (5 hospitals) during the same week in September 2022.
Preliminary data shows that 994 patients were discharged from the wards studied.
Technicians dispensed medicines to 278 patients. They found one or more discrepancies in 65 SMRs (23,4%).
Extrapolation of these results revealed that, in the period, there were potentially 232 patients with drug-related problems from these wards (and approx. 17,000/year in the region).
Our results showed that the SMR is not adequately reconciled in 23% of discharges, despite the doctor feeling that the task is completed. This gives drug related problems in the primary sector, often resulting in calls to the ward etc. that are time consuming and difficult to solve after discharge. Updating the SMR at discharge is essential for patient safety under transition of care. Our results will be brought to the hospital administrations, patient safety organisations and the regional medicines board for further discussion about the problem and possible solutions.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
DEL RIO GUTIERREZ JOSE MANUEL, MARTA MIARONS FONT, SONIA GARCIA GARCIA, TONI SORIANO COLOMÉ, ALBA PAU PARRA, ARIADNA GRACIA MOYA, NIEVES HERRANZ MUÑOZ, BRUNO MONTORO RONSANO, PAU RELLO SABATE, GERARD ORISTRELL SANTAMARIA, MARIA QUERALT GORGAS TORNER
Digoxin is a drug frequently implicated in medication errors due to its difficult clinical management. It has also been observed that digoxin pharmacokinetics could change in acute medical conditions, compromising its effectiveness and safety. As hospital pharmacists, we have the opportunity to review which dose is the most appropriate for every patient.
Twice-weekly active and extensive pharmaceutical review of digoxin-treated inpatients was established to identify whether the prescription was adequate and to adjust dosage according to plasma concentrations (PCs) and clinical situation.
1. A multidisciplinary team comprising pharmacists and cardiologists was created to identify possible solutions to improve digoxin prescribing.
2. It was agreed that a twice-weekly extensive review of digoxin-treated inpatients would be conducted by a pharmacist. Candidates for digoxin monitoring were:
a. Patients on chronic digoxin therapy and with at least one of the following risk factors: presence of renal failure (RF), recent surgery, elderly patients (≥65 years), critically ill patients, or patients with suspected toxicity.
3. Once the patients were identified by the pharmacist, they would be discussed with the cardiology team.
4. Digoxin prescriber would be contacted to recommend performing a determination of digoxin PC. PC reference range was set at 0.8–1.2 µg/L for atrial fibrillation (AF) and 0.5–0.8 µg/L for heart failure (HF).
5. PCs would be interpreted using a pharmacokinetic monitoring software (PKS Abbot).
6. Monitoring results and recommended dosage adjustments would be communicated.
From August 2021 to May 2022, 190 patients were identified. Sixty-five (33.7%) were considered for monitoring, of whom 21 (32.3%) were women. The average age was 77.9 (SD 11.7). Sixty-five (100%) with AF and 8 (12.3%) also with HF. The most prevalent risk factors warranting monitoring were patients aged 65 years or older (N=57, 61.9%) and RF (N=31, 33.7%). Thirty-three (51%) of monitored patients required a dosage adjustment, of whom 23 (69.8%) required a dose decrease, 5 (15.1%) an increase and 5 (15.1%) to stop the treatment. Median digoxin concentrations were 1.23 µg/L (interquartile range: 0.75-2.03).
The process described applies to any centre able to monitor digoxin CPs both in inpatient and outpatient settings.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Alexandre Benaiche, Mickael Tachon, Nathalie Arnouts, Amandine Gradelle, Kadidja Gribi, Remi Parsy
The ‘Agrippal’ programme was created to strengthen the anti-influenza herd immunity in our hospital and reduce the risk of nosocomial influenza. It was then necessary to improve both the vaccination rate of the staff and the inhabitants of the institution’s living area who were potential users. The vaccines were previously distributed in departments and injections made by the nursing staff without any traceability. The purpose was also to improve knowledge about anti-influenza vaccination among staff and users.
Our Healthcare-Associated Infectious Risk Prevention Unit (made up of hygienist pharmacists and nurses) launched a programme to fight against nosocomial influenza in our institution in winter 2018 to promote vaccination among staff and users and inform them about vaccination inside and outside the hospital.
Information conferences were held inside and outside the walls of the hospital for staff and residents of the city thanks to a partnership with the municipality to finance these events and communicate about their occurrence. Information materials (flyers) have also been made available to departments and some key departments (Emergency, Consultations, Obstetrics) were encouraged to inform patients at risk and their families about the positive impact of vaccination with provision of Health Insurance reimbursement forms. Our Healthcare-Associated Infectious Risk Prevention Unit created a Mobile Vaccination Team to vaccinate staff directly in the departments and encourage those who have not been vaccinated to do so.
The staff flu vaccination rate increased sharply, from 19% and 17% respectively in 2016 and 2017 to 34% in 2018 and 39% in 2019. Among vaccinated staff, 25% in 2018 and 17% in 2019 were primary vaccinated. Although the impact of actions aimed at users is difficult to measure, the number of nosocomial flu has been reduced in our hospital from 3.14 per 10,000 days of hospitalisation in 2017 to 0.58 and 0.61 respectively in 2018 and 2019.
This initiative has made it possible to double the rate of vaccinated staff in our institution and strengthen patient protection by reducing the risk of nosocomial flu. It only required a period of consultation between different actors without creating additional financial and human resources.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Zora Ćetković, Dragana Rajinac, Ivana Baralić , Jelena Marković, Darija Kuruc Poje, Miroslav Kota, Špela Urh, Irina Tegelj, Vesna Bizjak, Dragana Mitrić, Tijana Kovačević, Andrej Pečet, Irena Radivojša, Sanja Filkova, Vesna Bašić-Milošević
Medication errors regarding reconstitution and administration of parenteral antibiotics are frequent in hospitals. In our study conducted in 12 Southeastern European hospitals in 2021, we demonstrated the need of parenteral antibiotic reconstitution/dilution database in hospital pharmacy practice. Moreover, according to European Statements of Hospital Pharmacy (statement 5.5.), implementation of electronic decision support system by HPs should help to decrease the risk of medication errors. The purpose of software tools is to gather all relevant information regarding parenteral antibiotic reconstitution/dilution and make them easily accessible.
A group of hospital pharmacists (HPs) from 6 Southeastern European countries created new software tools (a mobile-responsive website and mobile applications for Android and iOS) for providing information on reconstitution and administration of parenteral antibiotics in collaboration with software developer. These tools contain parenteral antibiotic reconstitution/dilution database in seven different languages (English, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Montenegrin).
Technical requirements for website and mobile applications were designed by HPs. The development of these software tools was carried out by a software developer and funded by European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP). The final version of the software went through a rigorous evaluation, conducted by HPs during development and all technical problems were resolved consequently.
· Designing and developing these software tools helps HPs to provide evidence-based information about parenteral antibiotic reconstitution/dilution at the point of care, thus improving decision-making process and patient safety. · Reconstitution of parenteral antibiotics in wards is efficient and smooth. · Oral and written instructions for parenteral antibiotic reconstitution/dilution are replaced by electronic decision support tools, designed to prevent medication errors. · HP’s interventions are required to support the use of these software tools.
Our next challenge is wider use of these software tools in order to ensure the appropriate reconstitution/dilution of parenteral antibiotics in wards by nurses and physicians. These software tools are applicable in hospital setting and can be used by all regional hospitals. Additionally, they can be easily incorporated in hospital information system. We also plan to update periodically antibiotic reconstitution/dilution database, as new information becomes available.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Diane Le
When the case for a study sponsored by the hospital has been filed a few months ago, the national agency authorizing trials raised the issue of health waltch, particularly the management of drug recalls. With the research department, which alerted us on the lack of resources for health alerts, and at the same time facing an international cease of some drugs, we set up a health alert and a regulatory watch system, to improve the quality of product and the patient’s safety.
We set up a daily health and regulatory watch to stay abreast of any news. Regarding health watch, we included : studies for which the hospital is the sponsor ; studies for which the experimental treatments are not provided by the sponsor ; treatments used for adverse events and authorized by the sponsor.
Daily regulatory watch is carried out on the national legislation website with daily updates of national texts. If a new rule applies, it is written in a table to alert everyone.
Daily health watch is also carried out on the site of the national agency of drugs. Four types of information are recorded: drug shortages, alerts, recalls and releases.
Tables collecting those information are available on the pharmacy’s network so that anyone can read them, and can be shared with clinical research officers. To that day, some information has been collected due to a european legislation update on the clinical trials and has allowed us to anticipate what will change next year. We have not yet faced a drug recall but what has been done will allow us to react in the best way when this will happen.
The aim for carrying out regulatory and health watch is to allow us to quickly react and anticipate future problems, while keeping in mind the patient’s safety and the pharmacy practices improvement. This work was therefore completed with success, demonstrating the ability to react and the desire to deploy continuous improvement initiatives to strive for operational excellence and pharmaceutical. We now want to implement this work in the daily activity and extend it to other sectors.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Hind Bouami, Dorine Castillo
The human-machine system designer has to make decisions to secure and improve the automation process, and handle organization’s complexity. Documenting human agent’s situation awareness is crucial to support human-machine designers’ decision-making. Knowledge about risks, critical parameters and factors that can impact and threaten automation system’s performance and security are valuable for human agents, and should be collected using preventive and retrospective approaches.The evaluation of Macon hospital center’s automation performance enables to identify critical parameters to control in order to secure the human-machine system.
An automation evaluation approach has been conducted in Macon hospital center, a hospital equipped with automated drug dispensing solutions for more than 5 years. The analysis of Macon hospital center automation’s feedback provides relevant information to enhance the perception and the comprehension of the system’s complexity fully, environmental factors that interact with the system, and to identify critical parameters in the automation process. Therefore, agents can design a projection of a secure and performant automated organization. This information will enable hospitals to make effective decisions to improve their automation project performance.
We deployed an anthropocentric approach for automated system evaluation in Macon hospital center.
Our approach integrates six steps that are run in automated hospital pharmacies to analyze their feedback [6]:
1) The identification of pharmacy’s automation needs and objectives, and the analysis of operational environment and existing equipment,
2) The analysis of automated equipment functional specifications formalized by the pharmacy,
3) The evaluation of automation deployment results and related gains,
4) The evaluation of specific actions implemented by the pharmacy during automation process,
5) The analysis of the parameters to control for automated equipment integration security and performance,
6) The analysis of factors influencing human-machine interaction.
The analysis of Macon hospital center pharmacy’s automation specifications revealed that 66.22% of automation requirements are technical, 29.73% concern human-machine interaction, and 4.05% relate to human aspects.
80.95% of automation specification related to the chosen Sinteco’s automated solution are met. The performance of the chosen automated solution is involved in 28.38% of automation specifications performance in Macon hospital center. The remaining systemic parameters involved in automation specifications performance need to be controlled.
Critical systemic parameters involved in automated solutions specifications and performance that have been identified through Macon hospital’s automation feedback are: the specificities of the chosen automated solution, hospital’s strategic decisions and budgetary constraints, the complexity of the hospital’s organization, the complexity of hospital’s information system, the constraints related to the packaging of drugs by pharmaceutical firms, users training, the complexity of the automated system, and users’ requirements and constraints.
The five parameters influencing human-machine interaction that should be managed to secure automated systems are: understanding the system’s complexity, defining relevant levels of automation, determining human and automated agents’ authority, determining human and automated agents’ autonomy, and understanding the human complexity.
Handling life-critical systems complexity such as medication delivery activity requires to be equipped with appropriate technology, and to control automation risks. The integration of human-machine principles is crucial to secure automation in hospitals, and to maintain a good balance between automation and human skills.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
E Sulleiro, C Garrido, A Santamartina, O Delgado, B Aguado, I Alvarez Novoa, M Amérigo , L Calatayud, M Cardenal, J Carretero , J Corredoira, MA De la Peña, MJ De la Torre, S Domingo-Carranza, M Ercep, E Emili, M Eugui, E Falco, M Garcia , S Hernandez, M Hidalgo, J Hierro, M Jamali, C Joglar, S Juan, N Longás, A Lopez de la Rica, JJ Martínez , M MIllán , P Paris, C Ramirez, M Serrano
Medication errors are one of the most common causes of preventable adverse events in the healthcare system. A complete identification of a medicine, up to the moment of administration, is therefore a key element of a safe medicines dispensing procedure in hospitals.
Digitization is a trend affecting all levels of our society and medicines are no exception. Increased use of Datamatrix code in the outer packaging of medicines has facilitated many healthcare professionals to become familiar with this technology. It is now possible to easily retrieve online information about a medicine, which raises the possibility of obtaining updated information of medicines without necessarily using a paper leaflet. Moreover, paper leaflets in the hospital setting are very often disposed of without reaching their end user, the patient.
Additionally, hospitals have other needs closely related to digitalization, considering errors in the reconciliation of prescription versus dispensing and administration, that can be reduced due to automated capture of the code linked to a particular medicine in the smallest unit of use, and also when dealing with compounding traceability preparations for patients.
Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS), Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy in coordination with Hospital Committee of the General Council of Official Pharmacist Associations , and a series of pharmaceutical companies, mostly integrated in National Trade Association of the Spanish based pharmaceutical industry (Farmaindustria), have launched a project consisting of removing paper leaflet from the packaging components of a series of medicines exclusively administered in hospitals. These medicines will have a Datamatrix code in the primary packaging. When scanned, Datamatrix will allow to capture official PIL text from the information hosted in the Medicine Online Information Center of AEMPS (CIMA), which can be used for patient safety purposes at hospital pharmacy.
The Project began in November 2020 creating an ad-hoc working group on “Technical Regulation of Pharmaceutical Medicines” from Farmaindustria with AEMPS and representatives of Hospital Pharmacists. After 10 TCs and after having the participation of different partners, the main lines were agreed
Stakeholders agreed a proposal for pilot description and AEMPS informed the European Commissionin due course.
1. From January, 1 2022, a list of medicines meeting the established requirements will be able to be marketed without paper leaflet
2. Non-serialized Datamatrix will be included in the primary packaging, shall be compliant with GS1 standardization and may be pre-printed. It will contain specific NTIN/GTIN that will enable access through a correspondence table to Marketing Authorization Number (pharmaceutical form and dose) of the medicine hosted in AEMPS Nomenclator for Prescription (a medicine database intended to provide core prescription information to the care information services). In case technically feasible, companies may include also batch variable information such as Batch Number and Expiry date in the Datamatrix on a voluntary basis.
Assessing the impact of this practice in terms of efficiency, flexibility and safety is a key priority and this pilot project will gather enough data and information to help EC and Member States to revise relevant provisions in the legislation by 2022.
EU citizens will be able to benefit from the development of new technologies, as an underlying driver for delivering timely and easily accessible an up-to-date medicinal product information,
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Helen Cooper, Sheatha Abumehdi
A lack of licensed formulations for children means that use of unlicensed and off-label medicines is often the only appropriate alternative [1]. Local prescribing data demonstrates wide variability in concentrations of unlicensed specials supplied, at significant cost. This project aims to standardise medicines prescribing for children, improve patient safety by reducing inadvertent dose misadministration due to varying concentrations, reduce spend, and improve the effectiveness of working relationships between hospital and community healthcare teams.
Prescribing and procurement data were used to analyse, review and harmonise paediatric prescribing practices in a UK clinical commissioning group, with focus on rationalising use of unlicensed specials.
A target list of ten medicines was identified, based on variability of strengths and formulations available, and cost. A team of two dedicated specialist paediatric hospital pharmacists was funded to set out strategies to standardise prescribing of those target medicines, and to improve understanding of prescribing and supply of unlicensed medicines to children. Various methods were used, including; email communications advertising the roles and support offered; establishing a Paediatric Formulary Group; promoting the local Paediatric Formulary; creating paediatric prescribing pathways; reviewing specials prescribing and supporting switches to alternative formulations; and delivering a paediatric prescribing webinar.
Reviews of specials prescribing were initially undertaken in two of the six boroughs in the region. 138 switches to a preferred formulation for safety and/or cost-effectiveness were identified and discussed between July-October 2021. Risks associated with prescribing multiple concentrations of liquid medicines were identified and measures were put in place to prevent patient harm. The webinar was well attended, and although it cannot be quantified, awareness of the Paediatric Formulary has improved. The project is on-going and at this time the impact on spend cannot be shown but will be reported later this year.
The specific knowledge and skills of specialist paediatric hospital pharmacists are highly valuable in driving specials medicines rationalisation for children in the community. Future plans for expanding the project include extending the service to other boroughs in the region and widening the target list of medicines.
References: 1.Rawlence E et al. Is the provision of paediatric oral liquid unlicensed medicines safe? Arch Dis Child Educ Pract Ed. 2018;103(6):310-3. 2.Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group. Position Statement 18-01 Using Standardised Strengths of Unlicensed Liquid Medicines in Children. Version 5, April 2020.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Paula Hernando Martínez, María Antonia Meroño Saura, Caridad Marti Gil, Lidia Martínez Valdevieso, Jaime Fernández-Bravo Rodrigo, Dolores Barreda Hernández
There is a wide bibliography on how human errors related to drugs put the patient’s health at risk. Drug preparation and administration errors, dose calculation errors, lack of knowledge about drugs or interactions, to name but a few. There must be protocols to ensure that drugs are safe for patients, including procedures which professionals should fulfill in order to reduce those errors in processes and guarantee, in such cases, that they will not have adverse effects on patients.
Development of infographics for assembling drugs which are susceptible to a higher rate of errors in their preparation and administration to hospitalized patients.
During September 2021, a working group was formed in the pharmacy department (PD). Through the nominal group technique, the design and content of drug infographics was proposed as a solution to the raised problem. Subsequently, a bibliographic research of susceptible drugs to human errors during administration or preparation and those which requiring special handling was reviewed through the list of high-alert medication from National Institute for the Safe Use of Medications website and NIOSH list of hazardous drugs. To this end, the PD databases were analysed, obtaining the drugs that required the greatest number of pharmacotherapeutic consultations made by nursing staff on drug administration and recommendations made during pharmaceutical validation.
An infographic model has been designed which includes the description of the drug (name of drug, excipients, dose, pharmaceutical form, dosage regimen, route of administration, concentration), the preparation and administration protocol (reconstitution, dilution, infusion rate, premedication), observations (maximum doses, conditioning, incompatibilities, alerts) and storage conditions (conservation and stability). Infographics on dantrolene, intravenous phenytoin solution, intravenous nimodipine solution and potassium chloride solutions are currently being distributed. These documents are available at the nursing controls and on the hospital’s internal website.
To increase the availability of drug’s infographics and to update those that have already been developed when necessary. In addition, from the PD, the preparation of administration kits for the solicited drugs is proposed so as to ensure that all the necessary materials for the preparation and administration are included along with the corresponding drug and infographic.
