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
Lene Juhl Biltsted, Louise Stilling Rasmussen
In Denmark, patients with schizophrenia receive free antipsychotic medication for the initial two years post-diagnosis. Post this period, patients transition to the primary sector and assume the medication costs. Historically, the clinic dispensed larger medication quantities, offering short-term relief but not addressing the issue. This approach risks medication waste. The new workflows empower healthcare professionals to help patients establish stable financial arrangements with local pharmacies, curbing fluctuating medication expenses. This enhances patient safety by reducing at-home medication stockpiles. Financial barriers often undermine patient compliance. Healthcare professionals strive to aid patients, curbing relapses and readmissions, through rational, sustainable medication management that minimises resource wastage.
Training improved healthcare professional’s understanding of the Danish medication subsidy system and options for deferment in the primary sector.
The healthcare professionals’ new knowledge has provided the foundation for the development of optimised workflows in the treatment process, ensuring a more sustainable medication management during the transition to the primary sector. The project establishes the framework for reducing the risk of medication waste upon the patient’s completion of treatment at the clinic.
It also created a favourable setting for healthcare providers to collaborate with patients, enhancing adherence.
Healthcare professionals received training on deferment arrangements, subsidies, and compliance, with supervision from clinical pharmacists.
Patient cases were analysed to determine factors for future guidelines.
Guidelines were formulated to aid healthcare professionals during the patients’ transition to the primary sector.
A tool (calculator) was created for assessing the patients’ economic choices regarding medication expenses.
Healthcare professionals gained confidence in guiding patients on stable medication expenses.
Enhanced rational and sustainable medication use by incorporating the seven rights.
New guidelines now allow an appropriate quality assurance strategy to ensure sustainability and adherence.
Tool to assess medication costs which improves the patients adherence in the sector transition.
Lowered risk of over/under treatment and improper storage.
Diminished treatment failure risk by predicting patient medication expenses during the primary sector transition
In the next 6 months, the clinic will trial the established guidelines and routines with patients concluding their 2-year treatment.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
MARÍA ELENA CÁRDABA GARCÍA, SILVIA FERNÁDEZ PEÑA, AMPARO SALVADOR PALACIOS, MERCEDES FERNÁNDEZ PRIETO, CLAUDIA GONZÁLEZ GONZÁLEZ, MARÍA TERESA SÁNCHEZ SÁNCHEZ
Antineoplastic drugs, chemotherapy specifically, are a clear example of “high risk” medications. The drug administration phase, within the drug utilisation circuit, is where the highest incidence of errors has been detected, ranging between 38%-81%, so the development and implementation of tools aimed at improving security at this stage is very important.
The integration of Farmis-Oncofarm ® and Oncosafety-RC® pharmacy software was done, in order to improve the prevention, detection and reduction of medication errors in the administration phase of antineoplastic treatment in the Onco-Haematology Day Hospital (OHDH).
A Drug Library was created in Farmis-Oncofarm® software (v.4.0.11.107). Dosage units, stability, standard concentrations, maximum and minimum doses, time and infusion rate, and preparation and administration recommendations were parameterised and standardised. Parameters for the implantation of Oncosafety-RC® software (accepted percentage of volume deviation in the mixtures, types of intravenous lines, possible adverse reactions, drugs to be used in case of extravasation) were also defined. When the connectivity between Farmis-Oncofarm® and Oncosafety RC® was validated, Oncosafety RC® was implemented in the OHDC.
To evaluate the results of the implementation of this strategy, a retrospective study from May 2022 to May 2023 was carried out. Collected data, obtained from Oncosafety RC® software were: number of mixtures (antineoplastic, supportive drugs and intravenous fluid therapy) and treatments administered, dose deviations, adverse events, incorrect infusion rates, errors avoided due to incorrect medication.
12,294 treatments (44,898 mixtures) have been administered in OHDC.
Dose deviations were registered in the 0.01% of the mixtures, due to adverse events that required termination of the infusion. Only three adverse events happened in the study period.
The infusion rate was incorrect in the 0.5% of the mixtures; this information is useful to improve drugs administration and prevent infusion-associated reactions.
This strategy prevented errors due to incorrect medication on 2,499 occasions.
The integration between Farmis-Oncofarm® and Oncosafety RC® has improved the security in the administration of onco-haematological treatments, allowing the reduction of administration and medication errors. This strategy can be implemented in hospitals that have assisted electronic prescription software and information management software between different clinical management systems and infusion pumps.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Joana Pinto, José Feio, Sebastião Silva, Francisco Machado, Ana Dinis, Margarida Abreu, João Peres, Mariana Guia
Clinical decision support systems comprising information on DDI improve DDI risk detection, avoiding preventable patient harm. The resulting DDI alerts can change prescribers’ behaviour to benefit patient care. However, an excessive number of alerts can lead to alerts’ desensitisation by prescribers.
We monitored the drug-drug interactions (DDI) alerts displayed in the prescription system through three subsequent homologous periods, occurring after the integration of a DDI database in the prescribing software system of a teaching hospital to assess its impact on the prescribing pattern.
We developed a DDI database – MedH® – to be integrated into the prescribing software system to support hard stop DDI alerts. only the higher clinical risk DDIs were included in this database in order to restrain the burden of alerts and warrant acceptance by health professionals.
Data of all inpatient hospital prescriptions over a 12-month period prior to MedH® implementation were extracted and intersected with MedH® DDI BD to identify the top 10 co-prescribed binomials at risk of severe DDI. The number of alerts for the same binomials was then monitored through three subsequent, post-implementation, homologous periods.
Considered the TOP10 observed in the pre-implementation period, the number of alerts for all binomials has consistently reduced over the three post-implementation periods analysed.
The integration of MedH® DDI BD into the prescribing system, resulted in changes in the prescribing pattern, translated by a decrease, between 67% and 100%, in the number of alerts for a sample of control risk binomials coinciding with the top 10 co-prescribed risk binomials observed in the pre-implementation period. These results reflect the good acceptance by the professionals and the didactic effect achieved by the exposure to alerts.
More importantly, these results are indicative of the effectiveness of the implementation of MedH® Alerts in reducing patient exposure to high-risk combinations of medicines, thus promoting patient safety.
It will be important to ensure that data from IDD alerts are rigorously analysed to recognise clinical situations in which the co-administration of risk binomials is justified, to ensure consistent application of recommended risk minimisation measures, and the availability of safer therapeutic alternatives whenever possible.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
ROSALIA FERNANDEZ CABALLERO, ALMUDENA GARCÍA GARCÍA, MARTA HERNÁNDEZ SEGURADO, MARTA GÓMEZ PÉREZ, CARMEN MAYO LÓPEZ, ARACELI HENARES LÓPEZ, VIRGINIA COLLADOS ARROYO
Our aim was to improve the safety of HAM appointed by ISMP Spain (Institute for Safe Medication Practices) specially restricting the prescription, creating automated alerts and advising in administration.
The main objective was to identify and standardise in prescription and administration the high-alert medications (HAM), included in pharmacotherapeutic guide (PG) in a network of Spanish hospitals with about 1.330 beds.
Literature about HAM and recommended strategies was reviewed. We divided these drugs into two groups: HAM (heightened risk of causing significant patient harm when they are used in error) and very HAM (an error could cause death of patient). We identified both groups in electronic prescription system as follows:
– HAM: all prescribers are able to prescribe these drugs and they find yellow warning sign in left side of the drug in prescription screen and nursing electronic work plan for administration.
– Very HAM: these drugs need tracheal intubation or monitoring measures when they are administered to patients. Only prescribers in intensive care (ICU) and surgery units (SU) are able to prescribe them. For certain drugs, needed in medical hospitalisation units, all prescribers are able to prescribe them and they must confirm the prescription with confirmation message: “You are prescribing a HAM, an error could cause significant patient harm. Are you sure to continue?”. They find red warning sign in prescription screen and nursing electronic work plan.
Alerts were configured by systems team in our electronic prescription system.
We have identified 379 drugs as HAM. 324 drugs were configured with yellow warning sign.
Sixty-five drugs were identified as very HAM. Fifty-eight drugs were disabled to prescribe by all prescribers (only in ICU and SU).
Seven drugs were configured with red warning alert and confirmation message: dobutamine, isoprenaline, ketamine, labetalol, levosimendan, carboprost and methylergometrine.
As next phase of our project, we must develop a procedure to identify and create alerts in new drugs added to our PG as systematic risk assessment process. Moreover, we must evaluate the real impact of our alert system in prescribers and nurse team, to reduce alert fatigue. We will work in automatic reports with ignored alerts.
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.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
ALBA MARIA MARTINEZ SOTO, MARIA ONTENIENTE CANDELA, CARLES INIESTA NAVALON, PATRICIA ORTIZ FERNANDEZ, PILAR FERNANDEZ-VILLACAÑAS FERNANDEZ, ANABEL HERREROS HERNANDEZ, GEMMA MARTINEZ SOTO, CARMEN CABALLERO REQUEJO, MAYTE GIL CANDEL, ELENA URBIETA SANZ
– Guide the pharmacist in the development of an individualised follow-up strategy for patient evaluating the frequency with which appointments should be established in the consultation of Pharmaceutical Care.
– Use the information from the specific questionnaires to detect possible failures therapeutic.
– Use the results obtained in the PROs to direct the recommendations pharmacotherapeutic to perform, which will be assessed in a multidisciplinary committee of immune-mediated diseases.
– Promote higher quality pharmaceutical care.
Implementation of a circuit to improve pharmaceutical care and follow-up pharmacotherapeutic, incorporating the stratification of
patients according to the “Model of Stratification and Pharmaceutical Care for Diseases Immune-mediated Inflammatory Diseases” (MAPEX) and the use of Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs).
1. Selection of patients to include.
2. Design a database in Access for the collection of stratification data and PROs.
3. Selection of specific and generic PROs.
4. Stratification of active patients according to the MAPEX methodology at the beginning of the implantation and in patients who start during the follow-up period will be stratified at the baseline visit.
5. Establish a strategy for carrying out questionnaires (PROs) in consultation.
An Access database has been created that incorporates the blocks established by the MAPEX model with each of its variables broken down, allowing us to obtain the patient global score.
3 pathology-specific PROs have been selected (RAPID3 in rheumatoid arthritis, PSAID12 in Psoriatic Arthritis and BASDAI in Ankylosing Spondylitis) and a generic one, EuroQol-5D-5L.
The follow-up strategy based on the stratification was selected as the one proposed by the MAPEX model.
To carry out the PROs, those patients with arthropathies that are were under treatment with biological drugs.
It was decided to pass a specific PRO according to his pathology and the generic having a baseline intake, another at 16 weeks and another a year.
Design a study to measure the results in terms of quality of care obtained with this new circuit.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Annamaria Tesse, Cataldo Procacci, Domenica Ancona, Salvatore Lenti
Often the elderly patient suffers from several pathologies at once and commonly he is in polytherapy. According to the Italian Ministerial Recommendation No. 17, errors in drug therapy can cause serious harm to the patient. By increasing the patient’s awareness and reducing the number of potentially inappropriate prescriptions, it will be possible to improve the effectiveness of therapies and to reduce side effects.
In an Internal Medicine department, the concurrence between doctors and pharmacists has led to a project that aims to reduce duplications of therapy and to improve the health status of the patients. This through pharmacological recognition and subsequent therapeutic reconciliation carried out on patients in discharge.
In Internal Medicine ward, from June to August 2022, we gather the terapies for 48 hospitalised patients aged over 65 years and suffering from two or more chronic diseases. Reconciliation boards were then developed using Intercheck Web a “Mario Negri” Institute of Pharmacological Research’s software. Sequentially the physician, according to the chemist, proceeded to remodulate the therapies especially in those cases where there were serious interactions.
140 drug interactions were detected, on average 2.91 interactions per patient. Especially, 16 class D (very serious), 22 class C (major), 83 class B (moderate), 19 class A (minor) reactions were archived. The modified or partially modified therapies at discharge were 71%. This restriction bought to a curtailment of drugs taken and a removal of unnecessary drugs.
The team are doing a patient follow-up to six months and a year so earlier results will be soon available. Reducing drug intake is possible, and it involves a downsizing in side effects and in an increase in patient compliance. Information to the patient is essential and, by using this procedure on a large scale, it will be possible to optimise the management of the chronic patient at home and inpatient care.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Viviana Andrea Pinzon Garcia, Paula Camila Murcia Jaramillo, Reinaldo Grueso Angulo
In 2018, concerned with the opioid crisis in USA, the pharmacy and therapeutic committee began to work on safer opioid use; an initial diagnosis showed an increase in the use of in hospital opioids and a lack of protocol for the disposal of the resultant remnants. Standard single-dose syringes (SSDS) were devised to avoid remnants, subsequently noticing that the strategies to be used should involve the whole medication order cycle (MOC). This gave rise to the OSP, which involves physician’s pain management and prescribing practices, pharmacy preparing and dispensing process, nurse’s custody, administration and disposing protocols.
An Opioid Stewardship Programme (OSP) led by a multidisciplinary team: scientific direction, pharmacy and pain clinic, was implemented to ensure adequate and safe opioid prescription, dispensation, administration and disposing practices in San Ignacio University Hospital (HUSI), a tertiary level hospital in Bogota, Colombia.
Institutional pain practice guidelines were assessed, unifying the titration doses with SSDS and developing disposal protocols in which care staff is constantly being trained ever since. To trace the impact of the OSP, indicators for IV opioid consumption, SSDS prescription, naloxone use and guideline adherence were created.
Main obstacles on SSDS: <10% prescribing adherence, availability failures and dose expiration. In response, the whole ampoule prescription was narrowed to only pain specialists to face SSDS expiration costs and avoid shortage.
SSDS prescription proportion above 70% by July 2022, decreased milligram morphine equivalent (MME) consumption per hospital discharge (January 2019: 37, January 2020: 47, January 2021 (COVID 2nd surge): 39, January 2022: 25, July 2022 (COVID 3rd surge):16) and monthly costs decrease in 1997 USD, between 2019 and 2022.
An opioid shortage during the COVID surges, deepened in Colombia due to a hydromorphone recall, was avoided.
The OSP initiative could be replied in healthcare institutions considering our achievements. To keep working in a safer opioid MOC, our OSP has formulated new strategies with an active role of pharmacists, pain specialists and nurses oriented to: remnants disposal protocol, prescribing policies, medication error detection and healthcare staff and patient education.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
LUCIA SOPENA, ALBERTO FRUTOS, VICENTE GIMENO, OLGA PEREIRA, RAQUEL FRESQUET, ARITZ MERCHAN, REYES GARCIA, PAULA GOMEZ, ALBERTO APESTEGUIA, MARIA ANGELES ALLENDE, TRANSITO SALVADOR
The growing technological development of pharmacy services involves the coexistence of traditional warehouses with automated medicine dispensing systems controlled by different computer programs. The information is split into different systems and databases giving rise to possible errors due to the greater complexity. This is a threat but also an opportunity for the hospital pharmacist to lead the development, review, and improvement of medicine use processes and the use of health technologies to improve quality of care, patients’ safety and reduce costs. KNIME data analysis covered the need of our Pharmacy Service to blend data from any source in a single file simplifying the process.
The Pharmacy Service of a university hospital has implemented Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME) data analysis and develop successful treatment project to optimise the stock management of several medicines.
An initial algorithm was designed by the union of seven files and can be executed at any time to obtain the updated data.
This file provides up-to-date information about the stocks, stock-outs, consumptions, orders and purchasing data of all medicines (average price, laboratory, date and number of orders, units to be received).
In addition, KNIME calculated the coverage time in days and months from weekly and monthly consumption, and the current stock in the warehouses, obtaining a global vision of highest turnaround pharmaceuticals drugs.
The program also allows to link and merge data of the list for shortages of medicines, supply disruptions and restocking time, and to improve the storing, delivering and administering of COVID-19 vaccines.
KNIME program has been especially important in our Pharmacy Service to get better care outcomes and more precise medication ordering, which allows significantly higher patient safety.
KNIME is a tool that could be successfully implemented and appropriately generalised as recommended to all Pharmacy Services that use different data sources and want to have a generalised view of the information. KNIME represents an advance in the stock and purchase management of medicines specialties to work more efficiently, which improve patient care and safety. Digital medication management also contributes to greener pharmacies by preventing unnecessary overstocking and thus excessive disposal arising from expired medications.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Anna de Dios-López, Neus Pagès-Puigdemont, Montserrat Masip-Torné, Pau Riera-Armengol, Rebeca Pelegrín-Cruz, Cristina Martínez-Molina, Noemí Morollón, Robert Belvís-Nieto, Maria Antònia Mangues-Bafalluy, Mar Gomis-Pastor
Migraine is a neurological disorder characterised by frequent headache. Patients with an episodic migraine pattern have <15 monthly migraine days (MMD), whereas patients with a chronic pattern have ≥15 MMD. Migraine has a high prevalence (15-20% of female and 5-8% of male) and a great impact on their quality of life. Many migraine patients can benefit from preventive treatment. The use of a digital health programme in these patients can allow a real-time monitoring of treatment effectiveness (through the register of migraine attacks frequency) and adverse events. Additionally, it can improve the communication between patients and HCP.
We tested a patients’ mobile phone (mHealth) application in chronic and high-frequency episodic migraine patients. This application was synchronically linked with a website for healthcare professionals (HCP) and hospital clinical records.
MyPlan is a mHealth application adapted from another one developed in our hospital for heart transplant patients. Firstly, we conducted a focus group with patients to understand their needs and preferences. This platform fulfils the quality and Data Protection Regulation.
13 patients and carers participated in two different focus groups. Another focus group was conducted with the Neurology Department of our institution. The results permitted to adapt the mHealth application with the following functionalities and registers:
• Synchronous (videocall) and asynchronous (direct message) communication between patients and HCP
• Medication adherence
• Treatment adverse events
• MMD and monthly headache days (MHD)
• Monitoring through the register of biomeasures (blood pressure, weight), lifestyle habits (diet, exercise) and questionnaires (MIDAS, HIT-6, EQ-5D, MSQ)
• Information
Data registered by the patient was used to guide clinical management and improve patients’ healthcare route.
The introduction of mHealth in the healthcare route of patients with migraine could benefit both patients and HCP. This strategy could be incorporated in other health facilities that attend migraine patients in an outpatient setting. Nowadays, a clinical trial is being conducted to demonstrate its clinical benefit.
