• Description
• Lectures
• Workshops
• Program
• Abstracts
• Biographies
• Picturebook

The Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe met in Denmark on 19 and 20 February 2016 in Hillerød, Denmark. 

This two-day Symposium with the title ‘Work in Progress - Progress in Work’ was organised to further the work of the PCNE working groups. For this occasion a fourth stream was created with the selection of research outcomes as main topic. The symposium started with an opening lecture by Prof. Dr. Carmel Hughes from Queens University Belfast (N. Ireland) about the structured development of practice research interventions. After the presentation of six short oral communications, the sixty five participants went into four different workshops.

Workshop 1 was dedicated to methods to create guidelines, and participants learned the ins and outs of preparing guidelines with the help of the AGREE tool.

Workshop 2 dealt with Drug-related problems (DRPs). The current version of the DRP classification (V 6.2) needs an update, and the participants discussed what needed to be adapted.

Workshop 3 used a unique consensus method, with electronic voting, to (finally) establish a solid definition of the term ‘Medication Review’. An article on the consensus process will be drafted, and additional considerations will be published on the PCNE website.

Workshop 4 dealt with selecting outcomes of pharmaceutical care studies in a structured manner. For this the concept of a core outcome set (COS) was introduced and discussed, using the COMET website as a lead. The participants proposed to use a future conference to prepare a COS for medication adherence.

See the tab 'Workshops' for the reports

There were almost 50 posters. The poster award was won by S.H Chau from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, for a poster ‘Cost-effectiveness of gastroprotection with proton pump inhibitors in low-dose acetylsalicylic acid users’. The oral communication award went to Goedele Strauven from the Catholic University Leuven in Belgium. She presented the adaptation of a DRP-classification for the COME-ON study.

The slides of the oral communications can be found at the 'Program' tab.

 Just like the previous PCNE congresses, this Symposium was very successful. Because the number of participants is relatively small, there is a lot of social interaction, to which a joint wine-tasting and dinner also contributed. See also the picturebook.

The social event including a wine tasting, organised by the honorary member Bente Froekjaer. A brief overview of the wine tasting can be found here.

The Conference was financially supported by PharmaDanmark, Springer Nature, the Förderinitiative Pharmazeutische Betreuung and Pharmakon, the Danish College of Pharmacy Practice.

From theory to implementation: attempting to reduce complexity in the development of a complex intervention

Prof. Carmel Hughes, Queens University Belfast, N. Ireland

Find slides of the presentation here

The development of complex interventions in the field of health is receiving increasing attention within the scientific literature. In the past, interventions were often based on the ISLAGIATT principle: that is, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time’. However, such interventions were frequently ineffective because they were either delivered in part or not at all, demonstrating a lack of fidelity, or because little attention had been paid to their development, content, and mode of delivery. This lecture will outline the latest methodological advances in the field of intervention development, particularly complex interventions. The lecture will draw on health psychology literature, exemplar studies (good and not so good), together with guidance from key organisations and research consortia which are setting standards for development and reporting of these types of intervention studies.

Short bio

Carmel Hughes is Professor of Primary Care Pharmacy and Director of Research (Pharmaceutical Sciences and Practice Cluster) at the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. She is also joint Clinical Lead for the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network for Primary Care. She was the first pharmacist to be awarded a Harkness Fellowship in Primary Care Pharmacy which she spent at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. She is the only pharmacist to have received a National Primary Care Career Scientist Award which focused on the interface between pharmacy and general practice. She is the immediate past Chair of the Scientific Advisory Panel for Pharmacy Research UK and is a member of the National Institute of Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Commissioned Research Panel.

Workshops

• WS 1: Preparing guidelines for Pharmaceutical Care practice (Martina Teichert and Berry Daemen)

  Click here for a short Workshop report

  Background: Guidelines are the backbone of professional activities – and for today’s pharmacists there should be guidelines on pharmaceutical care. During the workshop the need and format for pharmaceutical care guidelines was discussed, The development and implementation was considered in the light of critical fail and success factors. The different perspectives from different countries helped the participants to share experiences and understand needs and challenges. The workshop was very interactive.

• Workshop 2 Revising the DRP-classification, making the Version 7.0 (Nejc Horvat and Tommy Westerlund with support of Foppe van Mil)

  Click here for short Workshop Report

  Background: In 1999, the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe constructed a drug-related problem (DRP) classification system. Since then, the classification system has been validated and adapted regularly. The current version is V6.2.
  The classification is for use in research into the nature, prevalence, and incidence of DRPs and also as a process indicator in experimental studies of Pharmaceutical Care outcomes. It is also meant to help health care professionals to document DRP-information in the pharmaceutical care process.

• WS 3: Preparing a PCNE standpoint on Medication Review (including issues like medication reconciliation, setting, definition, types and affiliated concepts. (Mitja Kos and Kurt Hersberger)

  Background: PCNE has been actively developing medication review services and research since Portugal meeting in Vimeiro 2009. At that time the aim of medication review was stated as “to optimize outcomes from drug therapy”. This simple definition was discussed at several occasions reaching an additional insight into what medication review services and research are supposed to be. Although several definitions have been already proposed, in Hillerod PCNE reached a final decision on the definition that would suit its members.

• WS4: Selecting and validating outcome measures on pharmaceutical care interventions. (Carmel Hughes and Linda Thomsen)

  Click here for a short workshop report

  Background: Outcome measures are a critical part of any research project and need careful consideration and selection. Researchers need to assess what outcomes are appropriate for a study, and if suitable and validated measures are available. Furthermore, outcomes which are measured should be meaningful to a range of key stakeholders ranging from patients to policy makers.

Program in a nutshell

Click to download the final version of the program

List of accepted abstracts (click on the title to see the abstract)

Dr. Berry Daemen

Berry Daemen is a senior projectleader at the Royal Dutch Pharmacist Association, The Hague, the Netherlands. Since 2010 he is responsible of the Dutch guideline program. He is co-author of many Dutch guidelines and standards for pharmaceutical care as well as many clinical multidisciplinary guidelines. His work experience consists of drug development, quality management, implementation projects, practice research and postgraduate education.

Prof. Carmel Hughes

Carmel Hughes is Professor of Primary Care Pharmacy and Director of Research (Pharmaceutical Sciences and Practice Cluster) at the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. She is also joint Clinical Lead for the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network for Primary Care. She was the first pharmacist to be awarded a Harkness Fellowship in Primary Care Pharmacy which she spent at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. She is the only pharmacist to have received a National Primary Care Career Scientist Award which focused on the interface between pharmacy and general practice. She is the immediate past Chair of the Scientific Advisory Panel for Pharmacy Research UK and is a member of the National Institute of Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Commissioned Research Panel.

Dr. Linda Agaard Thomsen

Linda Aaagaard Thomsen is Head of the Department for Research and Development in Community Pharmacy Practice at Pharmakon.
She received her master degree and later her PhD from the School of pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. She received her PhD degree in 2008 with the thesis: ”Quality indicators of preventable adverse drug events in patients with type 2 diabetes”. She was visiting researcher at the University of Florida, Pharmacy Health Care Administration, during her PhD studies. She joined the Pharmakon R&D department in 2008. Her research focuses on patient safety, quality indicators, patient adherence, vulnerable groups, and continuing professional development. Linda Aagaard Thomsen is author and co-author of several research reports and scientific articles, lecturer at national and international congresses as well as member of the advisory board on adverse drug events for the National Agency for Patients' Rights and Complaints.

Prof. Mitja Kos

Mitja Kos is an associate professor for social pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the Head of the Chair of Social Pharmacy. From the beginning of his career he has been developing skills in several different areas including pharmacoepidemiology, pharmacoeconomics, outcomes research, clinical pharmacy and informatics. The focus of his scientific and professional activities are comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of medicines, their safety and pharmacists’ cognitive services. Currently, he is the board member of PCNE and an active member of the commission at the Slovene Chamber of Pharmacies developing medication review services. He is a husband and father of three kids.

Dr. Martina Teichert

Martina Teichert is a scientific advisor at the Royal Dutch Pharmacists Association, The Hague, the Netherlands. There she is responsible for the policy to stimulate pharmaceutical practice research for and by pharmacists. She also works as a senior researcher at the Radboud Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands at the department of IQ Healthcare. Her research there addresses the measurement and continuous improvement of pharmaceutical care with additional attention to cost effectiveness.

Dr. Nejc Horvat

Nejc Horvat is a member of the Chair of Social Pharmacy at University of Ljubljana – Faculty of Pharmacy, Slovenia. He graduated in 2007 with theme titled: “Development of a questionnaire measuring patient satisfaction with pharmacy services”. In 2014, he defended his doctoral thesis titled: “Evaluation of pharmacy services from the patient and expert perspective”. His research focus is primarily the outcomes research, particularly evaluation of pharmacy services and drug related problems.

Prof. Tommy Westerlund

Tommy Westerlund is a researcher at the Department of Medicine Use at the Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) and an Associate Professor in Social Pharmacy at the Department of Social Medicine, the University of Gothenburg. His research has focused on various topics but most of all on drug-related problems (DRPs) and his PhD thesis was titled “Drug-Related Problems. Identification, Characteristics and Pharmacy Interventions”. He developed a classification of DRPs and interventions, named the Westerlund System, which was used in all Swedish pharmacies during a decade until a year after the re-regulation of the Swedish pharmacy market. Tommy Westerlund has served as the chairman of both the PCNE and the Community Pharmacy Section of the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences. At the MPA, he has primarily been working with Government Commissions from the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. 

Picturebook