EAHP EU Monitor - 22 February 2016

The EAHP EU Monitor is a regular round up of news relevant to hospital pharmacy in Europe.

You can subscribe to receive the EAHP EU Monitor by email here. 


EAHP JOINS EUROPEAN COMMISSION MHEALTH ASSESSMENT GUIDELINES GROUP

The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) has been accepted as a member of a European Commission working group developing assessment guidelines for mHealth applications in the European Union.

EAHP Board Member Robert Moss will lead the Association's representations within the group, supported by the policy mandate given to EAHP by its members' policy statement of 2014. The statement recognises both the opportunities, as well as the potential threats to patient safety, represented by the uptake of mHealth applications in the sphere of medicines use. To meet the risks, Europe's hospital pharmacists called for appropriate regulation mechanisms for apps that involve medicines use, and for the advice of hospital pharmacists to be taken into account within regulatory processes.

The European Commission has now set up the working group to develop guidelines for assessing the validity and reliability of the data that health apps collect and process. Based on their expertise, 20 members representing civil society, research and industry organisations were selected to participate in the working group. The guidelines are expected to be published by the end of 2016. More information here.

Commenting on EAHP's participation in the process Robert Moss said: "Hospital pharmacists are the secondary care sector's experts in medicines and medicines use, and is a profession that takes patient safety as fundamental to its mission. We're therefore delighted to be contributing to the pan-European oversight mechanisms required to deliver mHealth innovation safely. Hospital pharmacist insight on medicines risk can help protect the welfare of patients from sources of potential harm that may otherwise remain unseen. Its important for hospital pharmacists everywhere to engage in the mHealth agenda on this basis."


DUTCH PRESIDENCY OF THE EU PUTS THE FOCUS ON ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

The Dutch Presidency of the European Union (EU) has placed a strong emphasis on international action against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by holding a special high-level intergovernmental Ministerial conference on the subject on 9-10 February 2016.

The event was attended by representatives of the EU's 28 Member State countries, as well as Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU's Commissioner for Health and Food.

The conference, which was for a large part a closed meeting, is the prelude for the separate Informal and Formal European Council meetings for the Ministers of Health and the Ministers of Agriculture later this spring. The intention is to reach "Council conclusions" (agreed resolutions for action by all EU Member States) during these meetings. The Meeting, and the Dutch Government's push for new EU level recommendations on AMR, comes at a time when the existing EU Action Plan on AMR 2011-16 is coming to the end of its lifespan and discussion is commencing on its replacement.

EAHP, on behalf of hospital pharmacy, is engaging in the debate, promoting in particular that greater ambition be reflected in international resolutions, especially in relation to improving stewardship of existing antimicrobials and antibiotics via the hospital pharmacist skillset (e.g. prescribing advice, monitoring of use, advice to patients).

EAHP Vice-President Tajda Miharija Gala, who leads EAHP representations on the topic, said: 

"The decision of the Dutch Presidency of EU to put the combating of antimicrobial resistance at the heart of its 6 month chairing of EU Government meetings is most welcome. AMR is a cross border societal challenge as serious as climate change, economic threats or other topics routinely at the top of intergovernmental dialogue. Its right that AMR finally gets this kind of attention.

Reviewing EU level actions on AMR over the past five years, one can only conclude that more ambition must be shown. By ensuring the hospital pharmacist skillset is fully leveraged to improve stewardship of existing antibiotics and antimicrobials, Europe can make itself a best practice region that the rest of the internationally community can learn from."

Dutch Presidency press release here

EAHP Policy Statement on Antimicrobial Resistance here


EDQM ANNOUNCES DEVELOPMENTS TOWARDS A EUROPEAN FORMULARY FOR PAEDIATRIC MEDICINES

The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare (EDQM) has announced details of its project to create a European Paediatric Formulary. The Formulary is under development by 'The European Committee on Pharmaceuticals and Pharmaceutical Care' (CD-P-PH) and the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, with the secretariat provided by EDQM.

The future online publication will give hospital and retail pharmacies across Europe easy access to a formulary for the preparation of unlicensed formulations of paediatric medicines. Although there have been significant efforts to increase the number of available licensed medicines for children, there is still a shortfall – especially of those containing well-known active substances.

Today, national or regional formularies on pharmacy preparations for the treatment of children still play an important role in paediatrics. Although some individual countries have good approaches, these are not shared across all countries. This leads to the fact that currently, poorly-developed or even inadequate medicines are sometimes used.

A working party under the auspices of the European Pharmacopoeia Commission will start in 2016 to evaluate existing formulas and to initiate the elaboration of first monographs for the European Paediatric Formulary. Draft monographs will in future be published for public consultation in EDQM's online forum Pharmeuropa before final adoption by the two committees.

More information here

 

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE #EAHP16 SYNERGY SATELLITES

With a little over three weeks to the 21st Congress of the EAHP in Vienna (16th-18th March 2016), EAHP Chief Operating Officer Jennie De Greef provides a brief introduction to this year's Synergy Satellite topics.

Synergy Satellite events are a unique collaboration between EAHP and the supporting corporate partners of the Congress. The Scientific Committee defines topics of core current attention for the profession and the EAHP Sponsorship team identify corporate partners with mutual interests in the themes (the 'Synergy') to deliver a high quality, accredited, educational session.

This year's Congress is promoting expert presentation and discussion on two hot issues for the hospital pharmacy profession:

  • Interchangeability of biologicals in the EU – the science, practice, ethics and cost side?
  • Ready to use Drugs - a useful option for patient safety

Both events are kindly supported by educational grants from Roche.

Commenting on the Synergy Satellites, Jennie De Greef remarked:

"Every year when the EAHP Scientific Committee commences planning for the content of Congress it takes a close look at the challenges posed by new innovations in the pharmaceutical sector. Following this, they aim to design well-chosen and facilitated educational sessions that will assist hospital pharmacists in navigating emerging changes to practice. This year, the ethics and science related to interchangeability of biologics, as well as ready-to-use drugs, were selected as fitting the educational mission of the Congress. I hope all attendees will get the chance to grapple with the issues and return to practice with new insights and perspectives."

The Synergy Satellite on interchangeability of biologicals takes place on Wednesday 16th March from 1130 to 1300 in Hall D of the Austria Centre, Vienna. More information, including the abstract, learning objectives and teaching goals, is available here: http://www.eahp.eu/congresses/goals/synergy-satellite-interchangeability...

The Synergy Satellite on ready to use drugs takes place on Thursday 17th March from 12.00 to 13.30 and on Friday 18th March 0900-1030 in Hall 0.49 & 0.50 of the Austria Centre, Vienna. More information, including the abstract, learning objectives and teaching goals, is available here.

Full programme of the Congress available here.

Registration for the Congress can be made here.

Join the Twitter Congress discussion via the hashtag #EAHP16 https://twitter.com/hashtag/EAHP16?src=hash


EJHP: ANTIMICROBIAL CONSUMPTION IN A TERTIARY CHILDRENS HOSPITAL IN FINLAND

The online first edition of the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy has recently published an original article examining the results of a monitoring exercise of ten years of antimicrobial consumption at a single tertiary paediatric hospital.

More information here