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.
Production and Compounding
Eleonora Castellana, Simonetta Felloni, Matilde Scaldaferri, Giuseppina Bonfante, Elena Maggiora, Francesco Cresi, Maria Francesca Campagnoli, Alessandra Coscia, Maria Rachele Chiappetta, Francesco Cattel
The purpose was to provide the Neonatal-Intensive-Care-Unit (NICU) with ready-to-use bags that could improve patient safety by minimizing procedural incidents and maximize resource efficiency while providing clinically appropriate nutrition for the single PP.
Seven standard bags (SSB), ready-to-use, have been formulated and developed for parenteral nutrition (PN) in preterm patients (PP). An assisted prescribing software was developed for selecting the most appropriate standard bags (SB).
The project was carried out in collaboration between pharmacists, nurses and neonatologist of NICU.
The composition of the SB was identified from the retrospective analysis of the types of individualized bags requested from the Pharmacy and from the analysis of the recommended ESPGHAN-Paediatric-Parenteral-Nutrition-2018 contributions.
SSB ready-to-use were identified:
The bags have been produced by an industrial partner according to Good Manufacturing Practice-Annex 1. The shelf life is 90 days.
The SSB were implemented successfully on the PP. Starting from 2021, approximately 250 bags/month have been used, with a reduction in individual preparations by the Pharmacy of approximately 80%.
This approach showed results in terms of clinical results and economic outcomes. The computer program guided the physician to the most appropriate standardized solution.
Early and timely administration of ready-to-use PN showed reduced weight loss and a shorter duration of PN than individualized bags (21 vs 25 days).
The project described has shown benefits including improved nutrient supply, fewer prescribing and administration errors, lower risk of infection, cost sav-ings, ready availability of the bags 24/7 and safe and effective supply of SB. This project will be strengthened in our hospital.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Giorgia Babaglioni, Lorenzo Silva, Elena Festa, Daniela Paganotti, Tullio Elia Testa
In Italy, the rising PDMPs demand had to face the international shortage caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic outbreak. The self-sufficiency level of albumin represents one of the National Blood Centre (NBC) main challenge, in view of the health system sustainability.
The hospital pharmacy of a northern Italy centre, in accordance with the Good Use of Blood Committee, introduced a nominal form for human albumin (HA) requests to evaluate and rationalise the HA clinical-therapeutic demand. It represents a pharmacist led intervention approach shared by physicians, in favour of an economically sustainable healthcare contrasting the lack of plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMPs).
Prescription criteria were updated according to the most recent guidelines. The cut-off of blood albumin level above 2.5 g/dl has been introduced as eligibility threshold value and for the daily dose calculation, except for HA calculation based on volumes for plasmapheresis and large volume evacuative paracentesis in hepatic cirrhosis. The pharmacy provides a maximum of five days therapy, then a new revaluation and updating of blood albuminemia was required; 690 total requests were analyzed.
In March 2023, HA consumption was 61400 gr, collapsed by 75% in April and then settled at – 58% in May and June. The most important reductions in monthly requirements affected the surgical (- 75%), intensive (- 62%), internist (- 64%) and gastro-hepatological (- 52%) areas. 97,5% of requests were on-label: 20% for plasmapheresis or paracentesis, 21% for liver failure, 16% for cirrhosis of the liver with refractory ascites. 26% of requests (n = 180) reported in-range blood albumin value, while the 14% was unknown or ongoing because administered in emergency phase. 37% of requests has been evaded even if the blood albumin was > 2,5 g/dl due to mandatory clinical need. Thanks to the new prescription model it was possible to save € 91 752 in the second quarter.
The introduction of the reasoned request allowed to achieve albumin self-sufficiency with voluntary blood donations and reduce the market products purchase. Furthermore, it fostered the clinicians awareness on the HA use appropriateness, considering crystalloids and non-protein colloids as alternative therapeutic strategies as resuscitation fluids.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Elisabetta Volpi, Giuseppa Lo Surdo, Mattia Lorenzini, Anna Carmignani, Debora Luccetti, Stefania Baratta, Mario Cossu, Maurizio Mangione, Pierantonio Furfori, Monica Baroni, Paolo Del Sarto, Stefania Biagini
This implementation was designed to provide a safe tool for the particular context of the operating room, in which prescription and administration are actions usually urgent and concomitant. The program suggests a rapid list of prescriptions standardized for adult patients (i.e. dose, diluent, bolus/drip) and allows to register any other drug or modify default information, respecting the rules for a clear prescription before registration.
Our aim was to demonstrate the possibility to validate this program and prove its functionality.
In 2019 a multidisciplinary group (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, computer scientists) created an electronic program dedicated to the Cardiac Operating Room of the Heart Hospital, Fondazione Monasterio (Italy), which allow the prompt registration of drug prescriptions and administrations. Furthermore this program guarantees traceability of the drugs administered by the nurses, in order to improve medication safety practice.
This program was created into the electronic prescribing system available in Fondazione Monasterio. The standardized prescriptions already in use in the operating room were reviewed by a pharmacist, consulting the information in the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC), in the literature or by contacting the company that holds the MA. For each discrepancies identified a solution was proposed and shared with the working group, in order to validate a definitive list.
The prescriptions extracted by the IT Systems unit 6 months before and after the implementation of the new program were therefore analyzed.
A list of 182 standardized prescriptions was validated and reported in the program.
Among the 10,320 prescriptions made before the new program none had traceability of the drugs administered, while the 8,730 of the following period were complete and 99.6% of them fell within the standardized prescriptions, demonstrating the functionality and correct selection by the working group.
The development of a program for the computerized registration of prescriptions made during the surgery, which respond to the requirements of drug safety and traceability, represents an example of good practice.
We have implemented this tool in the paediatric population, with particular precautions due to the weight variability (i.e. dose/kg). The next step could be integration with further assessments (e.g., kidney function evaluation) and the transfer to other settings
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Paula Torrano Belmonte, Lydia Fructuoso González, Juan Antonio Gutierrez Sanchez, María Hernández Sánchez , Adrián Martínez Orea, María Guillén Diaz, Cristina Portero Ponce, Alicia Sánchez Blaya , Teresa Alonso Dominguez
According to Spanish guidelines, medication deprescription would be recommended in the following situations: in the advanced or terminal phase of the disease with a global loss of cognitive and/or functional abilities; in patients who do not experience any benefit; in the presence of intolerable adverse effects or interactions with concurrent treatments. The dose will be progressively reduced every 4 weeks.
We designed a project to deprescribe drugs used for dementia in patients at one of the sociosanitary centers (SSC) affiliated with our hospital. The drugs currently used in Spain are: donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine for mild to moderate stages, and memantine for moderate to severe stages.
Pharmacists conducted a search using the Savac® pharmaceutical management programme among all residents of the SSC who were prescribed anti-dementia drugs. Once eligible patients were identified, medical team was notified through the electronic prescription programme.
According to the previously detailed criteria, there were a total of four eligible patients: one of them was on rivastigmine patch treatment, and the other three were on oral memantine. The results in the first month were not very positive, as an attempt to withdraw memantine from one patient had to be reversed due to aggression issues. Another patient on memantine sadly passed away, and the remaining two, on memantine and rivastigmine, continued with the medication due to potential benefits.
After 10 months of work, the results have been quite promising, and we have successfully completed more withdrawal protocols for other CSS patients. Medication was deprescribed for three patients: one on donepezil and two on memantine. Another patient on rivastigmine is currently in the dose reduction phase.
Our goal is to achieve the appropriate prescription of anti-dementia drugs, in order to maximise benefits for patients while minimising adverse effects and rationalising public resources.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Maria Elisabetta Uda, Lucia Aledda, Melania Rivano, Monica Enrica Perpignano, Fabio Lombardo
Albumin has a limited availability, but also has a widespread and often incorrect clinical use, especially in hospitals. The check of daily human albumin prescriptions, revealed that the forms were not filled out correctly, the use was often inappropriate, in terms of quantity and indications, as malnutrition or hypoalbuminemia. Moreover, the previous prescription form was obsolete in view of recent studies. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to immediately update the forms for the request of albumin in terms of indications of use and posology.
The hospital pharmacy proposed the introduction of a new form for the prescription of human albumin solutions, in order to improve the appropriate use of this drug.
We carried out a literature review of the latest available evidence on the indications for the use of albumin solutions. The new form includes patient data and albuminemia values, the updated indications and the clinical conditions, in which the use of albumin is strongly encouraged and discouraged and inappropriate. It was authorised and shared with all hospital departments.
In addition, we started the analysis of personalised prescriptions, in paper format, before and after the introduction of the updated forms, and created a summary database of the indications and posology prescribed by clinicians.
Between January and August 2022, 24900 g of albumin were used, with a cost of €46.025. The preliminary analysis of 77 human albumin personalised prescriptions, relating to the months January to April 2022, shows that the forms were not filled out correctly (26%), the use of albumin was often inappropriate in terms of indications (30%) and quantity prescribed (83%).The use of the new introduced prescription forms has already enabled better dialogue between pharmacists and clinicians, providing a more complete guiding tool, fundamental for the discussion of prescribed therapy.
The hospital pharmacy will continue the analysis and discuss the results with the medical management and every hospital department. The aim is to improve the appropriate use of albumin, encouraging the clinicians to focus more accurately to the prescribed therapy. This will improve the quality and safety of patient care, generating significant cost savings.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Tanja Schicksnus
The team of the geriatric trauma center consists of an orthopedic surgeon, geriatrician, nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist and a discharge management and diabetic nutrition expert according to the German society for orthopedic surgery (DGU) and now also a pharmacist who performs risk screening for drug-related problems such as fall, dizziness, cognitive impairment, conspicuous laboratory values, lack of appetite, etc. immediately after admission, in order to optimize drug therapy.
The geriatric trauma center aims to provide geriatric patients with the best possible peri- and post-operative care after a fall with a fracture so that they resume their usual life and environment after the hospital stay. The pharmacist joined the interdisciplinary team with the aim of a medication review for the often multi-morbid and multi-prescription patients.
After the patient has been assigned to geriatric complex therapy according to the DGU criteria, the doctor requests a pharmacological consultation for this patient via the digital patient record. The pharmacist carries out a medication analysis with information from the record as well as bed side visits focusing on possible medication based problems.
Results are stored in the consultation report, serving as documentation and as basis for later evaluation. Important information for immediate implementation is highlighted in the digital file and transmitted to the attending physician by telephone.
Once a week, the entire team meets, with the scope for each patient being: What are the remaining problems? How can these be solved (interdisciplinary)?
During four months, medication reviews were carried out for about 100 patients. In the areas of bleeding risk, anticholinergic adverse events, antibiotics, malnutrition, dose adjustments and medicines inappropriate for geriatric patients, for one third of patients corrections led to an improvement in patients. For nearly 10% of patients also a prescription cascade was resolved and some medical device training has increased drug therapy safety.
Future benefit evaluation will be carried out based on resumption of patients due to a fall, in the categories: Time until next hospital admission, reason for next admission, adoption of optimized medication plan.
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
Alison Brown, Gillian Cavell, Nikita Dogra, Cate Whittlesea
Anticoagulants are high-risk drugs. An NHS England Patient Safety Alert was published in 2015 highlighting harm from inappropriate co-prescription of anticoagulants1.
A ‘duplicate anticoagulant alert’ (Anticoagulant MLM) was implemented within our electronic prescribing system (EPMA) to alert prescribers if co-prescription of two or more anticoagulants was attempted, with the intention of preventing the completion of a potentially harmful prescription. We conducted a retrospective review of the impact of the Anticoagulant MLM on preventing co-prescription of low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH) and direct oral anticoagulants (DOACS)
The study took place in a 950 bed UK acute teaching hospital. A report of all Anticoagulant MLM alerts generated for adult inpatients between 26th June 2017 and 8th October 2018 was extracted from EPMA. Data on drugs prescribed, alert acceptance or override and duplicate anticoagulant administration were collected. Where alerts were overridden, appropriateness of the override was assessed by an anticoagulation specialist pharmacist. Ethics approval was not needed.
The Anticoagulant MLM triggered on 894 occasions; 113 in response to attempted prescription of a LMWH for a patient already prescribed a DOAC. 65 of 113 alerts were overridden (duplicate prescription completed). 48 alerts were accepted (duplicate prescription avoided). Of the 65 overridden alerts, consecutive doses of both anticoagulants were scheduled appropriately. No duplicate doses were administered in 44 cases (44/65, 67.7%). 15 duplicate prescriptions were either cancelled before administration or not administered concurrently (15/65, 23.1%). Duplicate doses were administered against 6 prescriptions (6/65, 9.2%), on 3 occasions. No patient harm was identified. The alert prevented inappropriate co-prescription of anticoagulants to 48 patients. Overrides were justified in 44 cases. Anticoagulants were correctly prescribed for 92/113 (81.4%) patients. It was outside the scope of this project to investigate why alerts were overridden. ‘Alert fatigue’2 and alert frequency3 are recognised factors limiting the effectiveness of electronic alerts in changing a planned course of action.
The alert remains in place as a barrier to error. Further work is needed to identify reasons for anticoagulant alert overrides.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Aude Desnoyer, Anne-Laure Blanc, Christian Skalafouris, Rolf Hauri, Alain Lorenz, Pascal Bonnabry, Bertrand Guignard
PIM (i.e. over-/under-/mis-prescriptions, and drug interactions) occurs frequently and is a well-known risk factor for adverse drug events and morbi-mortality (1). Its incidence is high and underestimated in internal medicine (2). While many paper checklists, providing explicit statements, related to PIM in geriatrics exist (3), none had been developed for adults in internal medicine. Moreover, as all these tools are only available as paper versions, they are not easily accessible in daily practice (4). Therefore, we decided to develop an electronic checklist, dedicated to adults in internal medicine.
We developed an electronic screening checklist to detect potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) in internal medicine.
We conducted a 4-step study including literature review, 17 semi-structured interviews, a 2-round Delphi survey, and a forward/back-translation process (French English) to develop PIM-Check (5). Sixty-five medical specialists and pharmacists, from 22 hospitals in Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland were enrolled. Experts agreed on 160 statements, in 17 medical domains, and 56 pathologies. These statements were then integrated in a specifically developed web-based electronic tool. Each statement is associated with at least one pathology and one medication (1600 ATC encoded).
The application is available in French and in English on a website (www.pimcheck.org). A “Screening” function allows users to select for a specific patient, his/her co-morbidities and medications to switch on statements that are the most relevant. A “Favourites” function, gives quick access to selected statements, and a “Learning” function gives access to the list of all statements, those unread and those already read. Details regarding the conception of the tool, direct access to the references (n=333) and useful links (n=29), publications related to the tool and a contact section, are also available. Between February and September 2016, PIM-Check has been visited more than 75.000 times, in over 66 countries.
Several studies assessing the impact of PIM-Check are ongoing. The algorithm and content of the tool are constantly updated. Thanks to the English version, PIM-Check can be used in different European countries and healthcare settings (6), and will be helpful to support clinical pharmacists’ education in appropriate prescription analysis.
