Joan Peppard, President-elect of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP), has congratulated Leonidas Tzimis on taking up the position of co-chair for users in the Planning Committee of the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE Pharmacy).

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is the organization that enables users and developers of information technology for healthcare to achieve interoperability of systems through the precise definition of healthcare tasks, the specification of standards-based communication between systems required to support those tasks and the testing of systems to determine that they conform to the specifications. The work is managed by IHE Committees and supported by various national and international bodies and among them EAHP.

The IHE-Europe Connectathon (http://connectathon.ihe-europe.net) provides a unique opportunity for vendors to test the interoperability of their products in a structured environment with peer vendors. Participants test against multiple vendors using real world clinical  scenarios following IHE Integration Profiles specifications, across a variety of domains including Pharmacy, Radiology, Cardiology, Pathology, Patient Care Devices, Patient Care Coordination, Laboratory, and IT Infrastructure, along with those of their peer vendors. The next IHE European Connectathon will take place in Luxembourg, April 20-24, 2015.

Ms Peppard said: “For hospital pharmacy, as for any profession, you can either wait to be shaped by the future, or try to shape the future. Its with this in mind that our organisation takes a pro-active and engaged view when it comes to the challenges of future technology in the hospital pharmacy environment. There is so much opportunity for improvement out there, but we must be present and active in the debates and discussion to ensure the best outcomes are achieved. That’s why I’m delighted that, Leonidas Tzimis, our representative within IHE, is able to take up this leading position, and ensure hospital pharmacy is at the centre of developments in IT interoperability in European healthcare systems. On behalf of all at EAHP I thank him again for his leadership in this area and commitment to the task.”

Leonidas Tzimis said: “It’s a great honor to represent EAHP in such an interesting and promising organisation, together with the other members of the EAHP-Webgroup, Jacqueline Surugue and Simon Letellier. IHE Pharmacy addresses information sharing, workflow and patient care in both community and hospital pharmacies. The domain currently plans work in the following areas: Improve information exchange between healthcare providers and organizations that depend on pharmacy-related workflows and processes, develop ways to automate collaborative workflow between physicians and pharmacists, promote widespread adoption and implementation of IHE Pharmacy profiles in Europe, North America, Asia and worldwide. The integration of all the health domains is an uncharted territory and IHE Pharmacy, the vendors, the users and among them, EAHP, are the pioneers to draw the new map.”

Leonidas Tzimis is the head of hospital pharmacy at Chania General Hospital and head of the Greek delegation to EAHP since 1997.