The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) has launched a survey to collect information on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey on the future crisis preparedness of hospital pharmacies targets EAHP’s members from 35 different European countries.

 

For hospital pharmacists frequent shortages of medicines which impact patient care are not a new phenomenon. EAHP has worked on this issue for 10 years. Research conducted by the Association in 2014, 2018 and 2019 showed that the impact that shortages have on patient outcomes and the working time of hospital pharmacists’ needed to solve them has significantly increased. Due to reports about the shortages of medicines used for patients in intensive care units these problems seemed to have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

To better understand the impact on the profession, EAHP’s survey gathers on the one hand details on the medicines for which shortages were experienced. On the other hand, it takes stock of the experiences made in hospitals during the first few months of the crisis and explores suggestions for improving the future crisis preparedness of hospital pharmacies. 

 

Ahead of the launch, EAHP President Petr Horák highlighted the importance of analysing and using the knowledge gained after the COVID-19 outbreak: “To respond adequately to further coronavirus infection waves or similar crisis situations that will severely test the European health systems it is crucial to understand what worked and what did not work during the first wave. Consequently, I invite my fellow colleagues to share their experience and best practises to help all European hospital pharmacists improve their crisis preparedness.”

 

The EAHP Survey on the future crisis preparedness of hospital pharmacies will be open from 16th September to 23rd December 2020. Besides the English version, 12 different translations are available.