With short report of the 9th PCNE Working Symposium 2024, Basel

  Chairperson's editorial

Dear friends, dear colleagues,

We hope you had a pleasant summer holiday!
We recently held the 9th Working Symposium in Basel, Switzerland, and I am sure many of you still hold fond memories of the conference. This event was particularly special as it marked the 30th anniversary of the PCNE!

Over the years, the PCNE network has become well-recognized for its dedication to supporting and connecting researchers involved in developing, evaluating, and implementing pharmaceutical care.

Throughout these 30 years, it is essential to acknowledge the core pillars of our network, the working groups (WG), who have been tirelessly striving to realize the PCNE vision:

 WG Medication Review

• WG Drug-related problem classification
• WG Guidelines and Indicators
• WG Medication Adherence

This conference was also special because we elected two new Board members, replacing Isabelle Arnet and Ema Paulino, who stepped down after six years of great engagement on the Board and for the PCNE.

We are incredibly proud of Isabelle Arnet's and Ema Paulino's leadership and contributions to the PCNE Board. As Board members, they chaired the PCNE through the most challenging pandemic period. They will also be remembered as one of the best PCNE conference organizers, having hosted three outstanding conferences: the Basel conference (2024), the Lisbon conference (2022), and the Swiss conference (2021). The Swiss conference was a unique 3-day online conference with an online social event. This conference was one of the few that resulted in a joint publication. The PCNE Board sincerely thanks them for their significant contributions during their time on the Board!

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We want to welcome Ina Richling and Dorothee Michel from Germany as two new Board members who have already proven themselves as active pharmacists and researchers. Ina Richling has made significant contributions to the working group on drug-related problems, collaborating with Tommy Westerlund and Nejc Horvat in developing, maintaining, supervising, and evaluating the DRP classification. Dorothee Michel brings extensive experience in primary healthcare and will soon complete her PhD program, making her an ideal person to connect science and practice. Her expertise in implementing new pharmacy services will greatly strengthen the PCNE society.

      

The roles of chairperson and secretary, previously held by Bjarke Abrahamsen and Susanne Kaae, will now be taken over by my dear colleague and friend, Marina Odalović, and myself.



Ivana Tadić, PCNE Chairperson

The 9^th Working Symposium, "Advancing the paradigm and visibility of pharmacy practice research", took place at the University of Basel (Switzerland) from June 20^th to 22^nd, 2024. The intensive program of this international working symposium included expert courses, workshops, plenary lectures, soapbox, oral communications, and 81 poster presentations.
Prof. Martin Schulz, Prof. Shane Desselle, and Prof. Eric van Ganse gave excellent speeches as plenary speakers about the PCNE society, its vision and pharmacy practice development, the critical approach to publishing scientific results, and healthcare datasets. 
The symposium, therefore, provided the platform for three half-day expert courses:

• The Granada statements 2022 - What does this mean to my research?
• I have data to publish - How to proceed and choose the appropriate journal?
• How to submit a successful grant.

The most attractive workshop turned out to be the topic of “Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Pharmaceutical Care Research and Practice”, along with the following:

• Building a strong research team,
• From Guidelines to Quality Indicators,
• Shaping the Future of PCNE DRP Classification,
• Training community pharmacists who will recruit patients and defining the minimal core set of collected data.

The whole scientific program and discussion were led in the spirit of the "Granada Statements"!

The traditional social event

The traditional social event, renamed “the networking event”, was a great highlight. During a cruise on the Rhine, the participants not only enjoyed the traditional music by the Streichmusik Alder von Urnäsch with yodeling and coin rolling as an exceptional performance, but they could also follow two speeches: by Prof. Martin Schulz who resumed the story of the early years of PCNE ending with a “Prosit” on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of the foundation of PCNE and, by Prof. Shane Desselle who celebrated as its chief editor the 20^th anniversary of the pharmacists’ reference journal Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy (RSAP).

  

Over the years, Prof. Martin Henman's laudation of the new honorary members has become a much-appreciated humorous tribute. This year, we honored Prof. Veerle Foulon, Prof. Martina Teichert, Prof. Jacqueline Hugtenburg and Prof. Nejc Horvath.

The General Assembly

During the General Assembly, we accepted and welcomed five new PCNE members:

1. Kjell H. Halvorsen (Institutional member), Associate Prof., Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Pharmacy, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway
2. Sofia Kälvemark Sporrong (Institutional member), Prof., Social Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Sweden
3. Ivana Tadic and Prof. Anita Weidmann, (Institutional member), Institute of Pharmacy, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Innsbruck, Austria
4. Patricia Schnorrerova (Individual member), PhD student at the Medical Faculty, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia, Institute of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology
5. Chiara Jeiziner (Individual member), PhD, practicing community pharmacist; member of the Board of the Pharmaceutical Care Network Switzerland (PCN-S).

Closing Session and Awards 2024

The closing session enabled us to thank all the assistants (students and PhDs from the University of Basel), the sponsors for their indispensable support and the main organizers Isabelle Arnet and Kurt Hersberger.

• Stephanie Clemens, Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg, Austria, won the Oral Communication Award funded by the Förderinitiative Pharmazeutische Betreuung. The title of the presentation was: “Pharmacist Perspectives on Assisted Suicide: Unveiling Challenges & Improving Pharmaceutical Care (the PAS-Study)”

• Ligia Reis, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal won the Poster Award, funded by PD Dr. Isabelle Arnet, Basel, Switzerland, with the presentation entitled "Professional Pharmacy Services' Outcomes Measurement: A Narrative Review".

Soapbox

During the symposium, PCNE members had a chance to attend four soapbox presentations:

• Development of a Core Outcome Measurement Set for Medication Reviews, Cathrin Vogt, Hanna Seidling, University Heidelberg, Germany
• Pharmaceutical care services – what do patients expect?, Viktoria Wurmbach, Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany
• Pharmacist perspective on potential pharmacist prescribing: nationwide survey studies. Presentation of a survey (SWE, NL) and discussion about possibilities for other countries to join, Thomas Kempen & Nicole Ljungdahl (Utrecht, NL), Sofia Kälvemark Sporrong Uppsala (SWE)
• Annual progress of the working group on guidelines and indicators: Presentation of a project from the working group, Kenji Fujita (The University of Sydney, Australia), Kjell H Halvorsen (UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Norway), Martina Teichert (Leiden University, NL)

 
The whole program with a description of all events, plenary lectures, short communications, handouts and the picture book are available at: https://www.pcne.org/conference/33/9th-pcne-working-symposium-2024-