Making it Happen - New Practical Approaches to WHO Priorities
14-15 February 2007, Hillerød, Denmark
In February 2007, 27 pharmacists and one civil engineer (1) from 13 European countries contributed to an effective launch of the new professional programme of the EuroPharm Forum. Many of you participated in the Training Seminar, but, in particular for those of you who did not, please find below some information on the content of and decisions from the Seminar and by the Executive Committee prior to the seminar.
The Training Seminar took place in Hillerød, Denmark, at Pharmakon, Danish College of Pharmacy Practice. The objectives were, among others, to leave the participants fully accustomed with the EuroPharm Toolbox (a professional management tool in the form of a CD-ROM containing all Forum model programmes) and with the web-based discussion board of the Forum. The Training Seminar also aimed at allowing the various working groups to develop overall plans for their work for the coming two years. The feedback from the working groups and the evaluation forms clearly show that these objectives were met during the meeting.
The following working groups (which are all of high priority to the EuroPharm Forum Executive Committee) are now up and running as a result of the Training Seminar:
Mental health:
The 2-year goal set by the participants in the Mental health group is to develop materials for use in community pharmacy. The group will start out by mapping pharmacy-related mental health activities in the EuroPharm Forum member countries and by conducting a survey of undergraduate mental health pharmacy education in Europe.
Based on the results of these surveys, the group intends to do a pilot study, presumably in the area of depression. The group was hoping to have a PhD student connected to the group.
Safe use of medicines
(formerly known as ‘Questions to ask about your medicines’):
The participants in this group will map the various systems used in the member countries for helping patients to achieve better adherence and prevent adverse drug events. Special emphasis will be on the educational, communicative (patient counselling) and competency-related issues in the pharmacy as well on the type, content and quality of compliance reminder technologies used in the countries.
Health systems:
The participants in the Health systems group concentrated on two issues in their group session, namely carrying out a CATWOE analysis (analysis of C ustomers, Actors, Transformation process, World view, Ownership and Environmental constraints) and a risk assessment (potential risks, probability and potential effects). By the end of March, specific goals will be decided upon.
Education:
Four goals (and adjacent objectives) were set up for the work in the Education group:
Goal 1: To expand working group membership to reflect as far as possible the EuroPharm Forum membership and to include students and academia
Goal 2: To recommend a pharmacy competence development model for providing/performing pharmacy-based services in order to assist in the implementation phase of a specific EuroPharm Forum programme
Goal 3: To promote EuroPharm Forum projects and WHO priorities in pre-graduation programmes in order to encourage practice-oriented research.
Goal 4: To share information on interesting events and papers related to education and training.
Quality of medicines (eg, counterfeit medicines):
The group on Quality of medicines set two goals for their work, i.e. to perform a mapping of materials available on counterfeit medicines and, by doing so, to enable pharmacists to deal with counterfeit medicines. The concrete terms of references for the group will be determined in May.
The working groups will now go through roughly the same phases:
Mapping (have others already done what we intend to do in the group?)
Analysis (what works/what doesn't?)
Selecting an activity
Defining the common project goals
Identification and minimization of barriers
Setting up action plans.
During the seminar, special attention was paid to the pharmacist's role in the treatment and prevention of obesity. A WHO European Charter on counteracting obesity recently (November 2006) stated the necessity to strengthen European action towards obesity, since obesity constitutes a serious global public health problem.
At the Training Seminar, the participants identified a large amount of national and international materials on the pharmacist’s role and initiatives in the prevention and treatment of obesity, and this information was published on the electronic Forum discussion board. A lot of interesting materials were downloaded from, eg, Ireland, Wales, the UK, Denmark, Australia, France, the USA, Sweden, Finland and Hungary – which more than indicates that there is certainly a basis for building on experiences gained in other countries when setting up pharmacy-based projects and initiatives regarding the treatment and prevention of obesity.
At the next General Assembly of the EuroPharm Forum, in October 2007, the working groups will present and discuss the initial work in the groups. Subsequently, taking into consideration the many requests from the participants in February, a follow-up training seminar dealing with working group issues will be organised within the coming year.
Access to the materials on the Discussion Forum can be obtained by request to the EuroPharm Forum Secretariat.
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