EAHP General Assembly 2024 – New EAHP President, two new Board Members elected and two position papers adopted

From 6 to 8 June, the 36 members countries of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) gathered in Valencia, Spain, for their 54th General Assembly.

At the end of the two–days meeting chaired by the Immediate Past President Dr András Süle, Dr Nenad Miljković formally took over his functions as President of EAHP, commencing a 3-year term. Dr Miljković is the President of European Council for Pharmacy Education Accreditation (ECPhA) and the Head of the Hospital Pharmacy Services at the Institute of Orthopaedics Banjica in Belgrade, Serbia. He obtained his PhD degree in Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Belgrade in 2021 for health risk assessment in medicine shortages in cooperation with KU Leuven. In addition to his pharmacy degree with a specialisation in clinical pharmacy, he holds a dual master’s degree in European public health at the University of Sheffield, School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) and at the University Sorbonne Paris Cité, French School of Public Health (EHESP). Dr. Nenad Miljković’s research focuses on health risk and patient clinical needs assessment, medicine shortages mitigation strategies analysis, including therapeutic substitution, healthcare services organisation and prospective risk evaluation with numerous peer reviewed scientific publications in high impact journals. He served as a guest speaker and a poster presenter at numerous healthcare professional congresses in Europe and in the USA. Since 2018 Dr Miljković is the President of the Hospital Pharmacy Section of Serbia and the founder of the European Public Health Student and Alumni Association. He joined EAHP’s Board of Directors in June 2017 and he covered the role of Director of Finances from October 2020 to June 2023.

In his closing remarks at the 54th General Assembly, Dr Nenad Miljković thanked the Immediate Past President, Dr András Süle for the work done in the past three years, expressing admiration for his foresight, character and analytical skills. Warm thanks were also extended to the Managing Director Jennie de Greef, who after 15 years at EAHP participated in her last General Assembly before her retirement in March 2025. The new President expressed deep gratitude for the vision, strength and determination with which Jennie de Greef managed and developed EAHP during these years.

Two new Board Members were elected: Roisin O’Hare and Håvard Kirkevold. Prof. Roisin O’Hare is the Northern Ireland (NI) Lead Clinical Education Pharmacist, responsible for experiential learning in hospital pharmacy for NI. She is based in Craigavon Hospital in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust and works across both Schools of Pharmacy in NI, Queens University Belfast, where she has recently been made a professor, and Ulster University in Coleraine. Håvard Kirkevold has been Leader and Board Member of the Norwegian Association of Hospital Pharmacists for many years.

Darija Kuruc Poje –Head of the hospital pharmacy at the General Hospital “Dr. Tomislav Bardek” in Koprivnica, Croatia– and Louis Bertin –Hospital Practitioner at the Centre Hospitalier de Montreuil-sur-Mer (CHAM) and the Chief Pharmacist of Hesdin Hospital, France– were re-elected by the General Assembly for a new mandate and confirmed respectively as EAHP Vice-President and as Director of Finances. Three other Board Members were re-elected by the General Assembly for a new mandate: Ana Lozano Blazquez – Director of Pharmacy Department at Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias- Oviedo, Spain; Despina Makridaki – Director of Pharmaceutical Services in Sismanoglio-Amalia Fleming General Hospital of Attica, Greece and Piera Polidori – Director of the Complex unit of Hospital pharmacy at the joined hospitals V. Cervello – Villa Sofia in Palermo, Italy.

The EAHP’s General Assembly adopted two new position papers focusing on Shortages of Medicines and Medical Devices and on Procurement. The Position Paper on Shortages focuses on the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration and information exchange, with early and timely notification as wells as harmonised communication through the creation of a multistakeholder advisory group to address key issues in shortages. In addition, EAHP calls for the implementation of medicines and medical devices procurement models, the evaluation of shortage measures and management systems, the improvement of the measures of quality manufacturing maturity (QMM), and the analysis of domestic manufacturing capacities and capabilities for critical products. The Position Paper on Procurement concentrates on the pivotal role of hospital pharmacists in optimising procurement, on the relation between procurement and shortages, on the importance of ensuring procurement models not solely based on a single winner takes all concept, on the need of including environmental sustainability criteria, on procurement and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), on procurement of biosimilars, as well as on procurement and Health Technology Assessment (HTA).