A new robot joins Pharmacy team at Airedale Hospital, UK

An important member has been welcomed to the pharmacy team at Airedale Hospital to help speed up their dispensing service – an automated dispensing robot.

The new addition to the team allows pharmacy staff to spend more time on wards working directly with nurses and doctors, and helping patients to understand their medicines.

This will help reduce wastage, for example, by giving pharmacy staff more time to check medicines that patients bring in and to review patients’ medical histories. It will also reduce the chance of dispensing errors and speed up the delivery of medicines.

The current turnaround time for pharmacy dispensing a discharge prescription is two hours from receipt of prescription. It is estimated the robot will half that time and help patients get home sooner.

Nick Chilton, clinical director of pharmacy and medicine management at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The project has been in the Trust’s capital plan for some years and the pharmacy team are very excited. It has become a reality with the help from the Department Of Health’s Safer Wards – Safer Hospital Fund and the Trust’s digital care programme.

“Not only will the robot improve safety and improve patient experience, it will also reduce stock holding of medicines within pharmacy. The automation is an integral part of redesigning the pharmacy department and a key development in supporting the tranformation of pharmacy services. Altogether, it’s a great return on investment.”

Deborah Walker, lead pharmacy technician for medicines distribution at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “The robot has been a joy to work with. We no longer have to make trips to our storeroom. It takes away a lot of the manual parts of our job and allows us to spend more time with patients.”

Around 80 percent of medicines kept in pharmacy are now held by the robot which is linked to the department’s computer system. When an order is placed, the required machines are picked by a robotic arm and delivered to the dispensary work station by conveyor belt.

The robot installation cost £410,000 which included a redesign or the floor space and process flows. The giant piece of equipment (10m x 3m) comes with two robotic picking arms, a refrigerated section, and an additional set of cabinets for storage and management of controlled drugs.

Sources


Airdale Hospital

Cravel Herald

EAHP’s Hamburg Conference puts patient safety at the heart of the hospital pharmacist’s agenda

Bringing an action-packed 20th Congress of the EAHP to a conclusion, EAHP President Dr Roberto Frontini reminded the 3,500 attendees of the critical mission of the hospital pharmacy profession: putting patient safety first.

The entire Congress took this theme as its guiding subject with keynotes, seminars, and Synergy events including:

• Developing a safety culture: how to progress effectively; 
• Safety in high reliability industries – what health professionals can learn; 
• Barcoding the single dose of drugs to improve patient safety; 
• Improving patient safety through multidisciplinary teamwork; 
• Evidence and pharmacovigilance of monoclonal antibody reference and biosimilar products; 
• Targeted drugs, scattered goals, an examination of new approaches to cancer therapy 

In addition, the Congress provided an opportunity recognise to achievements with the following prizes awarded:

• 1st prize poster abstract: Natalia Navas Iglesias, Long-term stability of diluted solutions of the monoclonal antibody Infliximab 
• 2nd prize poster abstract: Rianne Zaal, Evaluation of a systematic tool to reduce inappropriate prescribing (STRIP) in adults with intellectual disability: a pilot 
• 3rd prize poster abstract: Carlota Salazar, Parenteral Nutrition (PN) in premature infants: risk analysis after redesigning a production process 
• 1st prize Good Practice Initiative: Patricia Ging, Innovating and collaborating – synergy between the hospital pharmacy and the University 
• EAHP-EPSA Student Science Award: Claudine Aziz, Compliance with the health information and quality authority of Ireland national standard for patient discharge summary information 

EAHP Director of Education, Science and Research Prof. Dr. Kees Neef closed the Congress by describing the programme for the 2016 Congress in Vienna with the guiding message: “Hospital Pharmacists taking the lead: partnerships and technologies".

EAHP Chief Operating Officer Jennie De Greef commented: “I want to express thanks to all those who make the continuing growth and impact of the EAHP Congress possible, including the Board of Directors, Scientific Committee and our industry partners Bayer HealthCare and Roche (Platinum partners), Amgen and Novartis Oncology (Gold partners) and Pfizer and Baxter (Corporate partners). We already have lots of new ideas and initiatives lined up for our 2016 Congress and look forward to sharing these in the coming months. Registrations and abstract submissions open on the 1st August 2015.”


Source

EAHP

PRAC recommends restrictions on the use of codeine for cough and cold in children

European Medicines Agency’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) has recommended restrictions on the use of codeine-containing medicines for cough and cold in children because of the risk of serious side effects with these medicines, including the risk of breathing problems. 

The PRAC recommended specifically that:

• Codeine should be contraindicated in children below 12 years. This means it must not be used in this patient group. 
• Use of codeine for cough and cold is not recommended in children and adolescents between 12 and 18 years who have problems with breathing. 
• All liquid codeine medicines should be available in child-resistant containers to avoid accidental ingestion. 

The effects of codeine are due to its conversion into morphine in the body. Some people convert codeine to morphine at a faster rate than normal, resulting in high levels of morphine in their blood. High levels of morphine can lead to serious effects, such as breathing difficulties.

European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) respond to European Commission Working Time Directive consultation

The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) has responded to a European Commission consultation on the potential scope for improvements to the European Working Time Directive and the arrangements for its implementation.

In its response EAHP emphasized:

• Its support for the principle of working time regulation, an important aspect in protecting patient safety and welfare and enabling workers to reconcile work and private life 
• The need for a balanced, careful and flexible approach in application in respect of understanding the both the challenges in, and important need for, providing 24/7 hospital services 
• The impacts the working time directive can have in respect of health professional training, which should be a matter considered within the Commission's ongoing review activity 

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.