The Scientific Committee welcomes the submission of original contributions from all fields of hospital pharmacy. The presenter can choose to submit either oral presentations (15 minutes) or posters. The abstracts will be reviewed by colleagues from different European countries. Accepted abstracts received before the deadline will be published in the official Abstract Book. After this date, publication cannot be guaranteed. Presenters are encouraged to have available handouts of their poster when presenting at the Congress.
Deadline for submission: submission is not possible anymore

CATEGORIES

Abstract must be submitted for one of the following categories:

A- Quality and Medication Safety (Focus of 2006 Congress)
Submissions on this category should fit within the general congress theme, which aims at quality and safe medication use as a strategy (strategic choices in the pharmacy, whole system approach, development of quality indicators) and aimed at improving patient outcome.
Research on the more practical aspects of quality should be submitted to e.g. section B (safe prescribing, procurement and distribution, administration of medicines), section E (production, dose preparation), section F (clinical pharmacy), section G (drug information).

B- Hospital Pharmacy
This section includes general core hospital pharmacy services e.g. purchasing, strategies/innovations, dispensary services, education and training including quality aspects of these.

C- Management and Strategy
Submissions to this section should relate to planning and implementing management strategies in hospital pharmacy, re-engineering of services to meet new demands or provide new services, addressing leadership questions, or other examples of handling current pharmacy management issues.

D- Pharmaco-economics
This section includes work in the field of pharmaco-economics (e.g. cost-effectiveness, quality of life and drug-utilisation data).

E- Pharmaceutical Technology (includes production, QC/QA)
This section encompasses aseptic dispensing, sterile and non-sterile manufacture, all aspects of quality control/assurance related to the manufacture or preparation of pharmaceuticals.

F- Clinical Pharmacy
This category should include submissions relating to the practice of clinical pharmacy – e.g. descriptions of service provision, service developments, audit or QA of services provided etc. This may include working with or providing services to patients with specific disease states.

G- Drug Information
Drug (or medicines) information should include all aspects of providing information to health care workers to support and inform them with respect to treatment of patients. This may include developments in information delivery, providing information on drug use in specific disease states, audit or QA of drug information services etc. This section includes also drug information directed at patients.

H- Drug Safety
Submissions on this category should include work specifically related to identifying problems with the use of medicines. Research directed at improving the safety of the prescribing, dose preparation, procurement and distribution, and the administration of medicines are also eligible.

I- Oncology
Work in this section should relate to research in relation with the application of cancer treatment (but work in relation with preparation etc. should be submitted to the section on Pharmaceutical Technology).

J- Pharmacokinetics
In this section submissions are welcomed relating to the pharmacokinetic behaviour of pharmaceuticals (in short, related to absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination, including mathematical analysis of individual or population data or special patient categories).

K- Infectious Diseases (included HIV)
This category should include all work related with the use of antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral drugs, including policies and strategies regarding the use of anti-infective agents.

L- Case Reports
Material suitable for inclusion as case reports include research, which has only very small patient numbers e.g. 1 to 10.

M. Hospital Pharmacy Practice
This category is for the exchange of practical experience, without a rigorous formal scientific study design. It may also include the description of new services, which do NOT have robust outcome data showing actual benefit to patients etc. or the description of a new role carried out by a member of pharmacy staff, which does not have scientific data to support statistical conclusions.

FORMAT

Abstracts must be submitted according to the instructions below.

· Abstracts should be structured in five paragraphs: Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions and Conflict of Interest.
· 3 lines maximum are allowed to mention the conflict of interest.
· Abstracts must have no more than 250 words (or less if you use graphs or tables), and be typed in English.
· Acknowledgements may be given at the end of the abstract. Emphasis should be on the results of the study. The title of the abstract must be strictly coherent with the data included in the abstract and the conclusions must be warranted by information included in the results section.
· Standard abbreviations may be used. Other abbreviations may be used if they are defined (spell out in full at first mention, followed by abbreviation in parentheses).
· Simple tables or graphs in black and white may be included, but not photographs. Symbols and drug structural formulas may be used and should be drawn or printed in black.

The abstract must be set up as follows (see example):
· Title in capitals (do not use abbreviations in title)
· Name of every author, preceded by initials. The name of the presenting author should be underlined. Omit degrees, titles or institutional appointments
· Institution, city, country where the study took place
· - One blank line
· Commence typing abstract.

 
POSTER AWARD

The best abstracts/posters – with regards to aspects like originality, scientific quality and practical applicability – will be awarded with 3 prizes amounting EURO 750, EURO 500 and EURO 250. The winners will be announced at the closing ceremony on March 24, 2006.

SUBMISSION

The following specifications should be strictly adhered to:

The text must be submitted as plain text by electronic mail or on disk (3.5’’ high density disk). Only the following formats can be accepted:
· IBM PC compatible Microsoft Word ‘97/2000
· IBM PC compatible Rich Text Files

Abstracts that do not comply with the above instructions together with the Abstract Submission Form duly completed will not be taken into consideration.

The EAHP Congress Secretariat reserves the right to make electronic adjustments to abstracts. Abstract texts will not be modified without the author’s consent. When – in the opinion of the Scientific Committee – the language of the abstract needs stylistic revision, this will be done by a professional editor. The resulting abstract will be mailed to the first author, who will have 5 working days to respond. Without response within 5 working days, the revised manuscript is final.

The completed Abstract Submission Form (one per abstract) together with the abstract on disk should be submitted to Dr. Arnold Vulto, Chairman Scientific Committee, at the EAHP Congress Secretariat or by email:

By mail:
EAHP Congress Secretariat
C/o Medicultura France s.a.r.l.
Le Travez
81260 Brassac (Tarn)
France

By email: abstract@eahponline.org