An advisory board was convened in September
2019 to provide leading healthcare professionals
with an opportunity to collaborate alongside BD,
with the common goal of optimising and
integrating medication management across
European health systems. The objectives of the
advisory board were to gain real-world insight
into the current landscape of medication
management across Europe, challenges faced
and potential solutions. The board was
comprised of pharmacy, nursing, academic and
biomedical engineering representatives, from
various European countries, including Austria,
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain,
Switzerland and the UK. In total, 14 delegates
attended. Their extensive expertise provided
truly comprehensive and real-world insight into
the current landscape of medication
management and what needs to be done going
forward to improve medication management
efficiency and patient safety.
Medication management — why does
it matter?
The responsibility of medication management lies
not with one individual, but with numerous
healthcare professionals, including nurses,
pharmacists, physicians and clinical managers,
making it a truly multidisciplinary process. It is
implemented in a range of settings such as hospitals,
pharmacies, primary care and care homes. As a
result, exceptional logistics and collaboration are
required to ensure first-class medication
management, and improve patient safety and
economic efficiency. The delegates unanimously
agreed, that while medication management is a
huge opportunity for us to optimally utilise available
medications and improve the standard of patient
care, suboptimal management can have significant
repercussions for patient safety. In England alone,
an estimated 237 million medication errors occur
annually at some point in the medication process,
with 20% of these errors occurring in secondary
care. 1 Regarding the cost of medication errors, an
estimated $42 billion is spent globally every year. 2
Suboptimal and inefficient medication management
can also result in financial loss due to medication
...to have a
management
system that
means we can
use technology
better, that we
can improve our
efficiency and our
safety... would be
an amazing
thing...
Alison Keen, UK
DELEGATES
Alain Astier
Former Professor of
Clinical Pharmacy and
Biotechnics, Henri
Mondor University
Hospital, France Etienne Cousein
Head of Pharmacy
Department and vice-
Chief Medical Officer,
Valenciennes’ General
Hospital, France
Nick Barber
Professor of
Pharmacology, University
College London, UK Michael Cox
Head of Biomedical
Engineering and
Telecommunications
at South Tyneside NHS
Foundation Trust, UK
Pascal Bonnabry
Head of Pharmacy,
Geneva University
Hospital, Switzerland
Maria Cruz Martín
Delgado
Head of Intensive
Medicine Service, Hospital
de Torrejón, Spain
Roger Fernandes
Director of Pharmacy,
King’s College Hospital
NHS Foundation Trust, UK
Ruud van der Hoeven
Former Director of
Pharmacy, SAHZ,
Haarlem, The
Netherlands
Alison Keen
Head of Cancer Nursing,
University Hospital
Southampton, UK Inderjit Singh
Chief Pharmacist,
University Hospitals
Birmingham, UK
Christian Reiss
Director of Pharmacy,
Ortenau Hospital,
Germany Robert Terkola
Oncology Pharmacist,
Lower Austria State
Hospital Holding, Austria
Pilar Blasco Segura
Head of Department of
Pharmacology, General
Hospital of Valencia, Spain Marta Trojniak
Clinical Pharmacology
Researcher, Burlo
Garofolo Pediatric
Institute, Italy
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