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.
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
Eva Heffernan, Deirdre Smith , Avril Tierney, Louise McDonnell
Transitions of care such as hospital discharge present an opportunity for medication error. Lapses in communication at this interface are common. For the next healthcare provider (HCP) to issue the correct medication safely and in a timely manner, the discharge prescription needs to bridge this communication gap. Prescribing errors are the most frequent subtype of medication errors and can be repeated systematically for prolonged periods. Detection of medication error using tools such as audit, learning from these errors and planning corrective action is essential to building safer healthcare systems.
This study adapted the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) national standard for patient discharge summaries to create a benchmark for discharge prescriptions in SVPH. A QI initiative targeting prescribers was developed. This was designed as a bundle intervention and was called the Discharge Prescription Education Bundle (DPEB).
The aim of this project was to evaluate the current level of discrepancies on discharge prescriptions for surgical and medical patients and to ascertain if a quality improvement (QI) initiative can impact on the severity of medication error at the point of discharge.
Uncontrolled consecutive baseline and re-audit of discharge prescriptions on a 26-bed mixed medical and surgical ward. The baseline audit assessed 70 patients’ discharge prescriptions. Deviations from the standard were termed discrepancies. Discrepancies were divided based on capacity to cause error (NCC-MERP Category A) and error occurred (NCC-MERP Category B-I). Discrepancies where an error occurred (NCC-MERP Category B-I) were reported using the in-house medication incident reporting (MIR) system and dually assessed by an independent panel and the project lead for potential to cause harm. The QI initiative was implemented and its impact assessed with a re-audit of 70 patients’ discharge prescriptions.
The overall number of discrepancies reduced from 156 in the baseline to 59 in the re-audit (p<0.05). Overall compliance with the audit standards improved from 17.1% to 54.3% (p <0.05). In the baseline audit 22.8% (n=16) of patients had a discrepancy where an error occurred; this reduced to 2.65% (n=2) in the re-audit (p<0.05). The severity of errors reduced in the re-audit.
The QI initiative used was proactive not reactive. Use of the discharge education bundle was not restricted to pharmacy opening hours.
This initiative was very low cost to implement. Following on from the successful results of this project one component of DPEB called the discharge prescription visual prompt is now preprinted on all SVPH discharge prescriptions as a reminder to prescribers.
