1st EAHP Statement Implementation Meeting

The 1^st EAHP Meeting of Implementation Ambassadors was held in Brussels on October 15 2016, and 26 countries were represented at the meeting through their national ambassadors. EAHP President Joan Peppard attended the meeting.

EAHP and ambassadors discussed strategies and the next steps to move towards Statement Implementation within all member countries.

Who are the ambassadors and what is their role?

During the 46^th General Assembly in Prague, delegates approved the Statement implementation plan presented by EAHP. An important part of the approved plan was the need of appointing Implementation ambassadors by national associations. Therefore, EAHP and member associations agreed on the importance of having motivated and enthusiastic hospital pharmacists aiming to help their countries to move towards the implementation of the Statements.
 
Member associations have done an excellent job appointing implementation ambassadors. So far, 28 countries have at least one ambassador already working with us. EAHP considers ambassadors a crucial part of the Statement implementation project. The main role of the ambassador can be summed up on the following:

• Act as primary link in between EAHP, their national associations and the work that is done within their countries
• Convey to EAHP the needs and priorities of their countries when it comes to Statement implementation.
• Build resources that will help hospital pharmacists, healthcare professionals and other relevant stakeholders to implement the Statements.

 
Therefore, ambassadors will help HEAP and member associations to define and design specific national strategies taking into account the needs and priorities of each country.

Social media: a tool to raise awareness

Since the appointment of the team for the Statement Implementation project during last GA, we have been working hard to create awareness of the Statements and the Hospital Pharmacy profession in social media. We are glad to inform you that we have increased our followers in Facebook and Twitter by almost 300 in less than 5 months. Among all our social networks, we reach an average of 10,000 people every day.

Use the hashtag #EAHPStatements every time you post something related to the Statements and don't forget to tag the EAHP account in your post or tweet! 

Building resources: moving from Statement to Implementation

During the meeting, implementation ambassadors and the EAHP Implementation team discussed the importance of building resources to help the project move forward and to provide the tools that will allow countries to move towards Statement implementation. Ambassadors and EAHP agreed on the need to:

• Develop awareness materials
• Identify centres of excellence: hospitals willing to provide training on procedures related to the Statements
• Collect case-studies and produce documents to engage relevant stakeholders
• Develop a self-assessment tool (online tool that will allow hospital pharmacists to assess the level of implementation within their countries)
• Create a Statement Implementation website that will gather all relevant resources

More details will be shared in the next newsletter!

Send us your questions

Please, do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the Statement implementation project. EAHP is looking for volunteer translators to help us translating awareness materials and other relevant documents.