Pharmacist’s team wins £50,000 innovation prize for antibiotic prescribing app

A hospital pharmacist and his team have scooped a £50,000 innovation prize for creating a smartphone app that offers instant advice on antibiotic prescribing.

Kieran Hand, a consultant pharmacist in anti-infectives at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, was part of the team which developed the MicroGuide app that won this year’s NHS Innovation Challenge Prize for infection control.


The free app, an interactive library of microbiology information and advice, was created in 2011 by Hand, critical care expert Sanjay Gupta and microbiologist Adriana Basarab.

MicroGuide helps medical staff at the patient’s bedside choose the most appropriate antibiotic to control an infection, tailored to the patient’s needs, while reducing high-risk prescribing that can spread antimicrobial resistance. It also helps staff decide on alternative treatments for patients who have already developed resistance to common antibiotics.

21st Annual European Association of Faculties of Pharmacy (EAFP) Conference

European Association of Faculties of Pharmacy (EAFP) is at the forefront of developments in pharmacy education and pharmacy in the various professional settings including community pharmacy, hospital and clinical pharmacy, industrial pharmacy and the pharmaceutical regulatory field.

EAFP serves as a platform for its member institutions to be part of the changes, plan the future and address challenges to ensure that the high standards that are achieved in pharmacy education and research within faculties of pharmacy is maintained.

EAFP is a recognised stakeholder for pharmacy at the European Union level and through this position it has been participating actively over the past months in the discussions regarding the amendments of EU Directives relating to the recognition of professional qualifications.

The state of Hospital Pharmacy in Europe in 2015: EAHP opens new look practice survey!

In the run up to its annual Congress, the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) has issued a new format practice survey to heads of hospital pharmacy across Europe.

The survey aims to shine light on the current state of practice in EAHP's member countries, and where attention for practice development is most required.

Since the 1990s, EAHP has conducted landmark surveys of practice on a quinquennial basis in order to:

• monitor the changes occurring across Europe in relation to what the hospital profession does and how it does it;
• locate where best and good practice exists; and,
• identify where progress may be below aspiration level.

The last survey was conducted in 2010 with results published via a series of articles in the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy.

Med@Tel, the International eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum

Med-e-Tel is an event of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), THE international federation of national associations who represent their country's Telemedicine and eHealth stakeholders.

The ISfTeH exists to facilitate the international dissemination of knowledge and experience in Telemedicine and eHealth, to provide access to recognized experts in the field worldwide, and to offer unprecedented networking opportunities. Med-e-Tel is one of the instruments that help the ISfTeH to realize this mission.

Med-e-Tel 2015 will be held in conjunction with the IHE-Europe Connectathon 2015, IHE's annual connectivity test marathon where health IT companies test the interoperability of their products against multiple vendors' systems. They perform these tests using real world clinical scenarios following IHE Integration Profile specifications across a variety of domains (radiology, cardiology, pharmacy, pathology, patient care devices, patient care coordination, laboratory, ...).

eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT are a tool at the service of medical and nurse practitioners, patients, citizens, healthcare institutions and governments. It involves many different stakeholders who need to be brought face-to-face to share aspirations, learn from research and experiences, show the possibilities, understand the market, discover new applications. Med-e-Tel is the meeting place with a proven potential for Education, Networking and Business among a global audience with diverse professional backgrounds.

Experimental Ebola treatments still at early stage of development

At this point in time there is not enough evidence for any of the experimental therapies for Ebola Virus Disease to draw conclusions on their safety or efficacy when used in Ebola patients. This is the finding of an interim report published by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that is continuing to review all Ebola treatments currently under development.

Any new information that becomes available will be added to the review to provide the best possible overview of data on medicinal treatments for Ebola.

“Treatments for patients infected with the Ebola virus are still in early stages of development,” notes Marco Cavaleri, Head of Anti-infectives and Vaccines at EMA. “We encourage developersto generate more information on the use of these medicines in the treatment of Ebola patients. We will review any new information as soon as it becomes available to support the response to this ongoing public health crisis.”

National laws on Electronic Health Records and cross-border eHealth services in EU Member States

Electronic Health Records are part of an interoperable infrastructure that allows different healthcare providers to access and update health data in order to ensure the continuity of care of the patient.

Yet there are, according to the authors of the study, major disparities between countries on the deployment of EHRs. The same can be said about the approach taken to regulate EHRs - some countries have set specific rules for EHRs, others rely on general health records and data protection legislation.

Content of EHRs 

While some countries have set detailed requirements as to the content of EHRs, others do not specify what this content should be. The level of details of the legislation on EHR content varies greatly from a simple reference to health data in general to exhaustive and detailed list of categories or data item.