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A NATIONALLY COORDINATED APPROACH TO DEVELOPING HOSPITAL PHARMACY SERVICES IN DENMARK

European Statement

Introductory Statements and Governance

Author(s)

L. Jeffery

Why was it done?

Approximately 450 people work within clinical and ward pharmacy in hospitals in Denmark. Despite Denmark being a relatively small country, these services have developed at differing paces, and sometimes in different directions. The initiative was set up to coordinate development and innovation in this field, across the whole country.

What was done?

A national group was established to coordinate and develop clinical and ward pharmacy services throughout Denmark. The working group consists of pharmacists and pharmaconomists representing the eight hospital pharmacies in Denmark.

How was it done?

In 2012/2013 fifteen people representing pharmacists and pharmaconomists from the five Danish regions were selected to the working group. These people were typically known to be experienced drivers of innovation and development in the field of clinical and ward pharmacy. The working group meets quarterly and additional work is carried out between meetings. There are no extra resources available to members of the group or their workplaces.

What has been achieved?

The group has produced and implemented minimum standards for ward pharmacy across Denmark. Benchmarking has been carried out using these standards and the baseline has been set. Progress will be measured regularly.

New standards for how often medicine shelf-life checks should be carried out on wards have been developed, resulting in the task being carried out less frequently on most wards, thus releasing resources to more clinically related tasks, at a time where extra resources are scarce.

Two national networking days for pharmacists and pharmaconomists have been held, where good initiatives are shared to all the regions and hospital pharmacies in Denmark.

What next?

The group is working on national standards for competency development of clinical pharmacy staff. Other logistics tasks will be scrutinized to see whether resources can be found for further investment in clinically related activities.

More benchmarking will be carried out, measuring other clinical and ward pharmacy activities throughout Denmark.

The work has just begun!

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