On second and third October, the members of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) came together for their 50th General Assembly. The COVID-19 pandemic played a key role in the exchanges between EAHP’s member associations and the Board of Directors. In addition to speaking about educational and policy activities EAHP’s decision-making body, the General Assembly, also elected a new President-Elect and voted on the adoption of two position papers.
EAHP is delighted to announce that András Süle has been elected as the next President of EAHP, commencing a 3 year term of office from June 2021. He will now serve as President-Elect during the final 9 months of Petr Horák’s presidency. András Süle is currently the Chief Pharmacist at Péterfy Hospital and Trauma Centre and the Chief Pharmacy Advisor at Duna Medical Centre. He is a guest lecturer and lead developer of the Hospital Pharmacy Specialisation programme at Semmelweis University. He obtained a PhD from Semmelweis University, Budapest, in 2008 and has since gone on to complete a PharmD Specialisation in Pharmaceutical Technology and a PharmD Specialisation in Clinical Pharmacy. In addition, András Süle is serving as FMD and eHealth advisor at the National Healthcare Services Centre in Hungary and was the President of the Hungarian Chamber of Hospital Pharmacists prior to joining EAHPs Board of Directors in 2014. Before becoming President-Elect, he served as Director of Professional Development and Director of Finance.
The Board of Directors of EAHP appointed Nenad Miljković as new Director of Finance and confirmed Aida Batista in her position as Vice President. The designation of a new President-Elect also meant that it was time to say goodbye to EAHP’s Immediate Past President Joan Peppard. EAHP President Petr Horák and Managing Director Jennie De Greef thanked Joan Peppard for her tireless efforts in moving the profession forward during her presidency. The General Assembly was also used to thank Rob Moss for his contributions to EAHP as a delegate for the Netherlands and EAHP Board member. He had stepped down as Director of Professional Development at the end of 2019
Since patient safety lies at the heart of all representations made by EAHP and its members, the General Assembly adopted a revised position paper on patient safety outlining the contributions of hospital pharmacists and advocating for increasing medication safety. In addition, to the revised patient safety position, EAHP’s member associations voted for the adoption of a new position paper on pharmacy preparations and compounding to provide information about this practice in hospitals and to call for a stronger embedment of compounding and reconstitution practices in European hospital pharmacies, linked to increasing capacity and training.
EAHP publishes new position paper on patient safety
At the General Assembly in October 2020 the member organisations of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) adopted a new position paper on patient safety. The document touches on the role of the hospital pharmacist in the medication use process and focuses on medication errors, a key concern for hospital pharmacists.
The position paper of EAHP contains six sections of which the first two comment on the use of risk management tools for increasing patient safety and detail why closed loop medication management uptake should be facilitated. Linked to the transition of care, information on the importance of medication reconciliation is provided which should also take place during the admission of a patient. The section on concordance outlines the benefits of patient and hospital pharmacist interactions while the one focusing on interprofessional collaboration highlights the significance of cooperation for patient safety. Section six, emphasis the contributions that infection prevention and control measures can make to reduce healthcare-associated infections. In its position paper on patient safety, EAHP
recommends a wider application of different risk management tools, including but not limited to single unit dose barcoding, risk management and quality control committees and computerised order entry systems in hospitals to lower medication errors for the benefits of patients.
advocates for the uptake of closed loop medication management to facilitate a faster and more accurate administration of medicines in hospitals.
recommends the implementation of clinical pharmacy services that can guarantee the medication appropriateness, reconciliation and the personalisation of therapies to further enhance the safety and the quality of the pharmaceutical care in Europe.
calls on national governments and health system providers to guarantee an adequate number of hospital pharmacists and the full utilisation of pharmacy services to improve concordance.
requests the strengthening of interprofessional collaboration and communication among healthcare personnel in all healthcare settings.
recommends the universal application of infection prevention and control measures by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO among healthcare professionals.
The Position Paper on Patient Safety can be accessed via EAHP’s website: www.eahp.eu
Lessons learned from COVID-19—EAHP survey on the future crisis preparedness of hospital pharmacies
The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) has launched a survey to collect information on the lessons learnt 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. These can be accessed via EAHP’s website: www.eahp.eu
Join 1 of 10 EAHP open learning courses
Online exchanges and training have gained more and more importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. To support its members all across Europe, the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) initiated the creation of an open learning environment in spring 2018. Since then 10 different open learning courses have been added ranging from 1.5 hour training on specific topics to 5 hour in-depth courses.
Hospital pharmacists and other interested healthcare professionals can choose from the following courses:
Management and Leadership
Medicines Shortages—Causation and Approaches to Improvements
Therapeutic Drug Monitoring as a Tool for Therapy Optimisation
Anticoagulants—Show me the evidence!
The essentials of biologicals—Past, present and future
Biosimilars in cancer care—The next challenge
Anticoagulation—From theory to practice
Biosimilars in breast cancer—The next challenge
Facing Brexit and FMD—Is Europe ready for the double ‘storm’?
Biosimilars—available yet sometimes missing—the challenge of procurement
EAHP is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) as a provider of continuing pharmacy education. Participants of the open learning courses will be entitled ACPE credits. These credits can be obtained after the completion of the course and a short survey.
Footnotes
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.