Making a difference in medication by advancing the hospital pharmacy profession

Hospital pharmacy specialisation advances patient safety and high quality healthcare.

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Further increasing safety for healthcare professionals

Hazardous medicinal products are vital for the treatment of both cancerous and other non-cancerous diseases. Hospital pharmacists are responsible for the preparation of these medicinal products and like all healthcare professionals that handle and administer hazardous medicinal products are exposed to certain risks.

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Resolving medicines shortage problems

Problems caused by medicines shortages are serious, threaten patient care in hospitals and require urgent action. EAHP's position paper on shortages outlines the nature of the problem and the activity required by each part of the supply chain to resolve the problem. It also calls for a European-wide investigation into the causes and improved communication between stakeholders.

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Combatting antimicrobial resistance

The escalating threat of antimicrobial resistance is a global public health concern and now seriously jeopardises the effectiveness of standard treatments, rendering some ineffective for their approved indications. EAHP is calling for health system managers to promote fuller use of the hospital pharmacy profession's skills and knowledge to drive improved stewardship of antimicrobials in the hospital sector.

This includes enabling and promoting the profession to make direct interventions within multidisciplinary care teams such as reviewing antibiotic duration, advising on the cessation of inappropriate antibiotic treatments, and educating other healthcare professionals on the restricted use of certain antibiotics.

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Procurement

Hospital pharmacists due to their knowledge and skills are specialists in the field of all medicines procurement. Hospital pharmacists should lead in all phases of the procurement processes and practices to ensure the continuity of supply of cost-effective and quality medicines to patients.

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Bar coding medicines to the single dose

A complete identification of a medicine, up to the moment of administration, is a key element of a safe medicines dispensing procedure in hospitals.

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Biosimilar medicines

Due to the rising importance of biosimilar medicines, EAHP decided to set out the position of the Association on key issues concerning biosimilar medicines including the role of hospital pharmacists, naming of biosimilar medicines, extrapolation of indications, information about biosimilar medicines as well as interchangeability, switching and substitution of biosimilar medicines.

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eHealth and mHealth

EAHP's policy statement on eHealth and mHealth calls for: systematic and universal achievement of electronic prescribing and use of electronic patient records;ensuring bar coding of medicines to the single unit primary package to enable more widespread takeup of bedside scanning in European hospitals, thus improving patient safety; appropriate regulatory oversight mechanisms to ensure the promises of mHealth applications have a positive impact, and to limit the opportunity for ‘rogue’ applications; and, ensuring hospital pharmacists are involved in the design, specification of parameters and evaluation of ICT within the medicines processes.

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Meeting future healthcare challenges in clinical trials

Clinical trials are essential for continuously improving patient outcomes and their quality of life. Hospital pharmacists are members of the multidisciplinary team needed for safely managing clinical trials. Within the European Union, clinical trials are governed by the Clinical Trials Regulation which harmonises the processes for assessment and supervision. EAHP outlines in this position paper the role of the hospital pharmacists in clinical trials, provides information on the need to involve different patient groups, reflects on the improvements in Europe’s clinical trial landscape and discusses the role of ethics committees in clinical trials.

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Making a difference by revolutionising patient care with ATMPs

This position paper outlines the roles and responsibilities of hospital pharmacists in the handling of ATMPs, addresses their education and training in relation to these products and provides insights on the assessment of ATMPs and pharmacoeconomics.

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Increasing access to medicines to meet the needs of patients

EAHP advocates for affordable medicines of good quality that are provided in a timely manner to patients. To achieve this goal barriers to treatment access need to be broken down and the uptake of enablers that promote and safeguard the access of patients to both new life-saving medicines and older, essential medicines must be increased.

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Preserving health system improvements from public spending austerity

Cuts to expenditure and investment in the hospital setting almost self-evidently pose risk of detriment to patient care and safety. In response to the impacts of public spending austerity being felt in health services across Europe, the 34 member countries of EAHP passed policy alerting decision-makers to the dangers and the need for diligent care in approach.

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Medical Device Regulation

As an impacted stakeholder EAHP takes a particular interest in the discussions on the future regulatory regime for the assessment, use and vigilance of medical devices in Europe.

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Protecting patient safety

Patient safety lies at the heart of all representations made by EAHP and its member associations. The position paper of EAHP touches on the role of the hospital pharmacist in the medication use process and focuses on medication errors, a key concern for hospital pharmacists.

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Preparing health systems for an ageing society

EAHP calls for the utilisation of using hospital pharmacists' expertise to manage polypharmacy, evaluate drug appropriateness and increase drug adherence in older patients.

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SmPC and density information

This position paper sets out a formal request for improvement to the standard requirements of information included in an SmPC. EAHP and its membership call on the European Medicines Agency, the European Commission, and national medicines agencies to bring about a change to SmPC requirements; that marketing authorisation holders and applicants provide information within the SmPC specifying the density of a drug solution.

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Pharmacy Preparations and Compounding

The position paper  aims at providing information about the practice of pharmacy preparations and compounding in hospitals and asks for a stronger embedment of compounding and reconstitution practices in European hospital pharmacies, linked to increasing capacity and training.

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Hospital Pharmacy Workforce 

The posiiton paper aims at identifying the needs of the hospital pharmacy workforce and puts forward actions that should be taken at the local and national levels, including short-term measures for improving pharmacy staffing and long-term plans for securing a resilient workforce, as a way to better respond to these needs.