Category: Newsletter

Dr. Thomas Kempen, GC member

In 2017, during the first year of my PhD studies, I attended my first ESCP conference in Heidelberg, Germany. The value of sharing experiences and have discussions among colleagues from different countries was evident to me, having been active within an EU-funded project. Clinical pharmacists in many countries are facing the same challenges and are concurrently working with the same possible solutions. After the conference, I became a member of ESCP and attended more (digital) events in the following years. After finishing my PhD on medication reviews by clinical pharmacists in hospitalised patients, I started as a post doc on the role of the pharmacist in primary care with a focus on pharmacist prescribing. In 2022, I was lucky to successfully apply for a position as ESCP General Committee member. With a fresh look, I hope to drive the society forward in connecting as many clinical pharmacy researchers, educators and practitioners from Europe and abroad as possible. With high-quality events and activities (for a reasonable price) ESCP shall provide a platform for all to connect and network and to share knowledge, experiences, and ideas. For this year, we have been working on excellent programmes for our conferences in Antwerp, Belgium (April) and Aberdeen, UK (Oct/Nov). And for the upcoming years, we are working on a sustainable medium to long term event strategy concerning the selection, planning and organisation of our events, ensuring high-quality and affordable events for our members. In doing so, ESCP shall continue to support all of us in advancing clinical pharmacy to optimize outcomes for patients and society in the future.

Update from the General Committee (by Derek Stewart)

The General Committee is the ESCP leadership body and is responsible for driving the strategy of the society. Since the General Assembly meeting in Prague, we have been focusing on several key areas including,

• the benefits that we provide to our members
• review of the annual plans from the Communication, Research and Education Committees and the Special Interest Group Council
• the society marketing and communication strategy
• our approaches to event planning
• relationships with national clinical pharmacy societies
• relationships with international societies and organisations

We are delighted to have entered into an agreement of joint working with SIFaCT – Società Italiana di Farmacia Clinica e Terapia (Italian Society of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics).

Update from the Communication Committee (by Derek Stewart)

Over the past year, the communication committee has been working very hard to refresh the communication approach. As well as the work developing and introducing the newsletter, we have refreshed our approach to social media and email. We are very active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, with posts almost every day. Please follow us, like, comment, retweet and share the posts to increase the reach of our messages. Over the next few months, we will turn our attention to piloting an ‘ambassador’ initiative with ESCP members advocating for the society at national levels.

Update from the Education Committee (by Kateřina Malá Ládová)

The ESCP Education Committee (EdCom) coordinates the educational activities of ESCP and oversees the scientific level of these activities. The EdCom consists of pharmacy educators who meet monthly and collaborate on initiatives aligned to the ESCP strategic goals. The committee is now led by Kateřina Malá-Ládová from the Czech Republic as Chair and Zachariah Nazar from Qatar as Vice-chair; other committee members include representatives from Belgium, Poland, Turkey, and USA.

The EdCom has responsibility for ESCP webinar program and leads on all other educational activities. The committee also participates in the construction of the scientific programs of the ESCP events as well as delivers workshops, lectures, or oral communications in the ESCP events.

Initiatives of the EdCom for 2023 include: implementation of a plan to optimize the ESCP webinars with the addition of resources to encourage further interactive learning; the delivery of a pharmacy education workshop at the 51st ESCP Autumn Symposium; and the development of a clinical case study resource. We will also be exploring the educational needs and expectation of ESCP members, and are open to any suggestions for collaboration.

Currently, EdCom has five members, one of whom is a representative of the ESCP General Committee. We will very soon welcome three new members who will support the work of the committee.

Update from the Research Committee (by Martin Henman and Betül Okuyan)

Last year at ESCP General Assembly held during annual symposium in Prague, Martin Henman took over the chair of ESCP Research Committee from Vibhu Paudyal, and Betul Okuyan has become a vice chair of the Committee. There are nine members of the Research Committee. Anita Weidmann and Francesca Wirth have also joined ESCP Research Committee last year.

The commentary written by ESCP Research Committee members, led by Anita Weidmann entitled “How to write a successful grant application: Guidance provided by the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy” has been accepted for publication in International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy in 2023. Please check “how to… series” materials at ESCP website under Guidelines and Tools headings. ESCP Research Committee members are working on new topics which will be launched soon.

Vibhu Paudyal will run ESCP Research Committee Webinar entitled “How to write a research paper” on March 7^th 2023 at 7.00 pm CEST.

ESCP Research committee members are working on a study protocol which aims to determine the clinical pharmacy research priorities of ESCP members and on a systematic review to identify the scope and quality of international clinical pharmacy practice guidelines. The Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists (SIDP) and ESCP deprescribing research collaboration is led by Vibhu Paudyal and Anita Weidmann on the behalf of ESCP Research Committee.

To ensure the quantity, quality and rigour of research abstracts submitted to ESCP Spring and October meetings, the fourth iteration of version 6 of the Guidelines for Successful Scientific Presentations is being adapted by the ESCP Research Committee through the efforts of Ankie Hazen, Martin Henman, Betul Okuyan, led by Anita E Weidmann. Anita Weidmann is also preparing a presentation video including key tips for authors who is planning to submit abstracts to ESCP Meetings.

Abstract review is complete for the ESCP Spring Workshop 2023 in Antwerp. Preparation of a masterclass and a workshop for 51^st ESCP Symposium are underway by Committee members. Martin Henman is a chair of the Organizing Committee and Ankie Hazen and Anita Weidmann are members of the Scientific Committee of the Aberdeen ESCP Symposium 2023.

Update from the Special Interest Group (SIG) Council (by Bart Pouls)

For those who have not noticed yet: the ESCP has revived its Special Interest Group (SIG) community and currently there are three active SIGs: deprescribing, mental health and young ESCP.

Apart from the new topics, a few other things have changed. New is that SIG membership is active. Being part of a SIG means you will actively help to achieve the SIGs goals. SIGs set themselves with attainable goals every year or two in order to remain an active group. SIGs will make sure that interesting output (such as webinars or documents) will be shared with ESCP members. SIGs are now led by a steering group. The steering group consists of four to six SIG members who take responsibility for part of the SIGs activities such as communication or working towards a SIG goal.

Interested in joining on of the SIGs or starting one with fellow ESCP members? Please click here for more information.

Update from the Young ESCP SIG (by Mina Kovačevič)

YESCP welcomes young professionals, and young at heart to join us on the journey through the uncovered pathway of clinical pharmacy. We aim to connect recent graduates on a professional as well as social level through webinars, mentoring projects or social dinner @ESCP events. Join our SIG and discover what we have to offer. We are looking forward to getting to know you, and shape the future of clinical pharmacy in Europe, and worldwide together!

Update from the ESCP SIG on Deprescribing (by Betül Okuyan)

A new ESCP Special Interest Group (SIG) on Deprescribing was launched at our first and second kick-off meetings (October 20th, 2021, during the ESCP Autumn Symposium and November 30th, 2021). Panel discussion with the participation of global deprescribing experts (Barbara Farrell-Canada, Denis O’ Mahony- Ireland, Mirko Petrovic-Belgium, Stephen Byrne as a moderator) titled “Barriers and Facilitators to Achieving the Goal of Deprescribing” was held on March 28^th, 2022. Workshop on deprescribing in neurological disorders was moderated by Monika Lutters at ESCP Spring Workshop- 28-29 April 2022 in Zürich, Switzerland.

During last year, three online meeting was held with ESCP SIG Deprescribing members. ESCP SIG Deprescribing Group Meeting in person was held during the ESCP Prague Symposium – 19-21 October 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic. This meeting was open to all attendees of the symposium. At SIG Hot topics session of ESCP Prague Symposium 2022- Polypharmacy and Ageing- highly-individualized, person-centered care, Stephen Byrne presented the lecture entitled “Deprescribing in Europe & other countries: current initiatives and ongoing activities.”. Our next plan is conducting a baseline survey on deprescribing initiatives in all countries in Europe, both research and practice activities.

ESCP SIG on Deprescribing was organized Global Journal Club with The Australian Deprescribing Network (ADeN), Canadian Deprescribing Network, and the US Deprescribing Research Network (USDeN). Second International Deprescribing Journal Club was hosted by ESCP. iSIMPATHY (implementing Stimulating Innovation in the Management of Polypharmacy and Adherence Through the Years) is an EU funded partnership between Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland delivering person-centred, pharmacist-led medication reviews across primary and secondary care. Pharmacist representatives from the iSIMPATHY project in each of the three countries presented the project data to date and also reflected on the implementation of iSIMPATHY in their own areas. For more details (including recording and slides of presentation) click here.

ESCP SIG Deprescribing membership is available to all ESCP members. If you are not an ESCP member yet, please become a member of ESCP to activate your membership for the ESCP SIG Deprescribing. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any further information you may need at sig.deprescribing@escpweb.org

Update from the ESCP SIG on Mental Health (by Martina Hahn)

In 2023 Mental Health SIG had its first meeting. After two meetings, the SIG will start to work on a paper about the provision of pharmaceutical care in the different European countries as well as provision of pharmaceutical care in mental health.

Also, the paper look for reimbursement methods of each country. With this paper, SIG hopes to give other some foundation for their argumentation on the National level to achieve a reimbursement and provision on clinical pharmacy for people with mental health issues