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.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
Claudia Wunder, Szabolcs Tobi
To introduce returns to supply chain is a critical process in distribution of medicinal products, as non-compliance with storage conditions or inappropriate handling can impair the quality and hence endangers patient safety. In terms of a continous improvement process we considered a standardization and a supervision of this field as mandatory.
A standard form for handling of returns was developed. It was designed to ensure that important process steps are done and documented. Furthermore it should offer the opportunity to learn about the reasons why users return medicinal goods to the pharmacy. After one year of usage (2015) the forms were evaluated with the objective of validation and improving the process. According to PDCA-cycle measures were deduced based on the results.
The standard form guides the process and assures
– that medicinal products are stored under quarantine until approval by pharmacist,
– that storage conditions are proved for the time the goods were out of pharmacy,
– that the quality of each returned medicinal product is checked carefully and
– that the reason for return is documented.
The standard forms were collected and evaluated concerning
– number of returns,
– reasons for returns,
– value of returns.
The standard form proved to be a useful tool to gain information about gaps in the process of distribution. The evaluation demonstrated that users had problems with ordering due to article changes and unclear names in the warehouse management system. It showed the need for education of trainees and pointed out lacks of communication between pharmacy and wards. The analysis also presented the money-saving potential of re-utilization of returns. What was achieved is an improvement of distribution process by
– implementing an intensive and standardized education for trainees,
– optimizing main data in warehouse management system,
– sensitizing the responsible persons and
– getting in closer communication with nurses on wards.
Besides that the economic benefit of the process could be proved.
At the end of 2016 the impact of the measures shall be reviewed. Benchmarks shall be deduced to audit the functionality of the process in future.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
A. Navarro Ruíz, A. Martínez Valero, R. Gutiérrez Vozmediano, A. Andújar Mateos, A. Martí Lorca, I. Jiménez Pulido
The purpose was to increase the efficiency of this management process involving a high workload due in part to the absence of information.
In Spain, the availability of drugs under special circumstances is regulated by the Spanish Royal Decree 1015/2009 of 20 June, which established three instances: (1) use of investigational medicinal product undergoing a clinical trial, (2) use of medical products for a medical purpose not in accordance with the authorised product information (off-label use) and (3) access to unauthorised medicines in our state but which are legally marketed in other states. Also, each region has its own regulatory system for medicines. In the pharmacy department, we have developed a software application for managing requests for medicinal products in the situations described above, and in accordance with our region’s regulations. It is organised in different sections that collect patients, prescribing physician details, medicinal products and diagnostic information. It has restricted access through user accounts and a menu for multiple search parameters.
In the pre-design phase, we held individual meetings with pharmaceutical and administrative staff involved in this process to identify their specific needs and priorities, and to assess these once the software application was created. The database management system used for the development of the computer application was Microsoft Access 2003. Once finished, it was tested for 2 months to help pinpoint specific errors and improvement opportunities.
Computerisation of this process has improved the efficiency in requests management, facilitating the use of information, increasing speed and reliability, allowing the possibility of analysing large volumes of data, providing greater confidentiality and increasing security through backups.
The next step will be to assess the usefulness of this software application using a satisfaction survey. To incorporate this initiative into other hospitals in our area requires only compatible software able to run the application.To extend its use to other regions would need adaptation of this software application to the existing regulations in each region.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
L. Munck
Globally, we are facing an increasing amount of drug shortages, even though international regulatory authorities take initiatives to improve this.
We have national order data available through one national organisation that manages all tenders and backorders for drug supplies to all hospital pharmacies.
Access to order data enabled us to start this improvement initiative in May 2014, and hence fight the backorder challenge at the national level.
We applied LEAN and Supplier Collaboration to turn around the trend of increasing amount of drug backorders to hospital pharmacies.
Our initiative consisted of tight follow-up and continuous improvements with ‘TOP6-suppliers’, (ie, the 6 suppliers with currently the most negative impact on our national drug supply).
‘TOP6-suppliers’ are selected each week at LEAN board meetings.
Tight supplier follow-up, by e-mail, weekly:
We informed the ‘TOP6-suppliers’ that they currently are among the suppliers with the most backorders, and asked them to:
• Confirm/update delivery dates for all open backorders
• Inform us of the underlying reason for each backorder
The suppliers continue to receive weekly emails, as long as they are selected as ‘TOP6-supplier’.
Continuous improvement meetings, face-to-face, quarterly:
We had meetings with the 3 suppliers with the highest level of backorders/poorest level of improvements.
Meeting agenda: Reasons behind current backorder situation and actions to improve.
Obstacles—>Our solutions:
Too busy managing actual backorders and no time to drive improvements—>Added one dedicated resource to drive this initiative.
How to manage our effort—>Develop leading key performance indicators (KPIs) that ensure focus on influence and improvements.
We were not always confident that our effort would provide the expected results—>Continue to focus on the agreed approach and KPIs, even if it takes approximately 12 months before we achieve improvements.
• Backorder amount decreased by 25%.
• 3rd quarter2014: On average, 99 item-numbers in backorder (range 87-117).
• 3rd quarter 2015: On average, 74 item-numbers in backorder (range 67-99).
• Closer dialogue and improved cooperation with our suppliers with most/critical backorders.
1. Share achievements.
2. Start an international network to share best practices.
3. Together achieve further improvements in drug supply.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
H. Thoong
PETC admits approximately 15 000 patients per year and is a high user of high cost drugs. Traditionally, a pharmacist provided a clinical and supply service with no technical support. Frequently, prescriptions were written late, dispensed items were lost and patients waited unnecessarily to receive treatment. Furthermore, patient non-attendance and medication re-supply due to misplacement of original dispensed items led to stockpiling of medicines.
A pharmacy technician (PT) coordinated medication service was introduced onto the Paediatric Elective Treatment Centre (PETC) to decrease patient waiting time (PWT) and drug wastage.
Prior to admission, patients requiring medication were identified by a PT. If medication had been prescribed, this was transcribed onto a pharmacy order form. The prescription chart and order form were clinically checked by a pharmacist. If the drug had not been prescribed, prescribers were contacted. The medication was dispensed and delivered to the ward in advance. The PT ensured all required medication was readily available on the ward. Data on PWT, time to process medication orders, cost of unused drugs and number of items available prior to attendance were collected for a 6 month period.
Total cost savings achieved due to returned unused medication amounted to £82 074.
To extend the role of the PT in PETC. Therefore, the PT will undertake basic medication reconciliation, assessment of patients’ own drugs and notify the clinical pharmacist of patients requiring a full medication review.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
T. De Rijdt
Medication errors find their origin mostly in prescribing, transcribing and administration of medication. Only 4 % of the errors occurs in the pharmacy process. As we covered the major reasons by deployment of a electronic prescribing system with decision support and bedside scanning before administration the next step in augmenting patient safety is preventing dispension errors in the pharmacy.
All medication orders from the electronic prescribing system are revised by a hospital pharmacist for appropriateness and send to a set of handheld barcode scanners for guiding the pharmacy technicians through the picking process. They identify themselves, the ship label, the picking location and the medication by scanning. The scanner checks if the right drugs are dispensed for the right patient.
Due to bedside scanning all orders are electronically available and all medication have barcodes on the single dose. All locations are barcoded for reasons of replenishment of stock. By simply sending the orders to handheld terminals it’s a small effort to verify the picking.
All electronic medication orders are checked by barcode scanning or a second hospital pharmacist resulting in a diminishment of picking errors to (nearly) zero. We can show an online status of the medication order to nurses and physicians and we shifted pharmacist time from checking drugs to checking appropriateness of therapy.
In a next step we will also check retour medication by barcode scanning preventing possible misplacement.
Selection, Procurement and Distribution
A. Navarro-Ruiz, F.J. Rodriguez Lucena, C. Matoses-Chirivella, A.C. Murcia-López
Ulcers imply a lower quality of life for patients and caregivers, and are considered a negative indicator of healthcare quality with increased costs. Global spending on wound dressings from our hospital in 2010 was 600,000 euro, for an estimated population of 300,000 habitants.In the Pharmacy Department there exists wide experience with the Unit Dose Drugs Distribution System (UDDDS) with decentralized stocks that are greatly reduced. It is for this, so it aims to make a management at our UDDDS of special wound dressings for wound care in hospitalized patients, under the same criteria for selection, adquisition, and clinical and financial management of medicines.
To establish a rational and efficient use of medical devices for the prevention and advanced wound care, through a prescription dispensing system of wound dressings in hospitalised patients within the unit dose distribution system of the pharmacy department. Furthermore, to evaluate the effectiveness and continuity of process improvements, and extend it.
The Pharmacy Department, along with hospital nursing staff specialized in treatment of ulcers, developed a prescription-dispensing circuit for wound dressings (April 2012-January 2013). At internal medicine and surgery inpatients, the nursing staff of their hospital units (HU) prescribes dressings in medical orders and refers to our UDDDS where it validates, monitors and verifies the consumer. Dressings included in the project are: Class IIb for wounds to be healed by secondary intention, and Class III incorporating substances that can be considered drugs.
The prescription-dispensing dressings with UDDDS access contributes to a more efficient use and management thereof in the treatment of inpatients’ ulcers. Furthermore, the creation of a multidisciplinary group for the selection of health products included in the hospital and the development of protocols and guidelines, promotes continuous training of health personnel and improves the quality of care by standardizing the criteria.
The developed program is currently established and there is a continuous increase in other hospital clinical areas that benefit from this UDDDS for wound care.
