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A pharmacist’s travel story
Another year brings with it another Congress of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists,
this time taking place in Gothenburg in Sweden from 21–23 March 2018
Business Unit
Compounding of
Fresenius Kabi
Having previously been mainly famous for its
shipbuilding industry in the past, the city of
Gothenburg now houses many diverse and rich
communities, particularly in the field of art. One can
consider hospital pharmacy as an art, which ensures
the continuous improvement of care and outcomes
for patients in the hospital setting. And so the city
of Gothenburg and the Swedish Exhibition and
Congress Center were a great fit for the nearly 4000
attendees at EAHP 2018.
Walking through the exhibition hall
The EAHP congress continues to bring increasing
numbers of delegates together for the shared
purpose of interacting and learning from
professional experiences. A warm welcome from
EAHP President, Joan Peppard, opened the rich
educational programme. The vast exhibition hall
showcased many innovations for the hospital
pharmacy world that applied to the entire drug
pathway – from prescription to administration.
One important aspect, which garnered much
attention and interest from the delegates, was drug
preparation. There is no doubt that a semi- and/
or fully automated compounding process brings
about benefits, such as a greater focus on important
clinical support activities, that are hard to achieve
when undertaking time- and resource-intensive
manual compounding.
The exhibition hall was the place to see many
new products and devices displayed at companies’
booths: Fresenius Kabi, with the first presentation of
KabiHelp ® , its new parenteral nutrition compounder,
was no exception. The device has been developed in
40 | Issue 90 | 2018 | hospitalpharmacyeurope.com
order to serve those requiring tailor-made parenteral
nutrition admixtures, from paediatric to adult
patients. This compounding system will be available
in different versions, to be adaptable to the specific
needs of compounding pharmacies, compounding
centres, and other clients. Furthermore, newly
developed disposables help to reduce the set-up
time and the number of manual steps, thereby
decreasing the risk of human error. Safety and
quality are, without any doubt, the most important
aspects in the production of compounded products,
and KabiHelp ® meets these prerequisites through
a variety of safety features.
Automation as the answer
The practice of compounding dates back to the
origins of pharmacy, when hospital pharmacists
were then focused on manual work and the
logistics associated with having to compound the
majority of medications. However, the arrival of
industrial manufacturing followed, which changed
pharmacists’ daily practice. Nowadays, though,
compounding is gaining renewed momentum as
a result of the increasing need for individualised
preparations.
Modern technologies enable healthcare
professionals to pursue the universal task of
compounding with increased safety and high
quality, while freeing up hospital staff for patient-
centred care. If the advantages of a transition
from manual to automated compounding of
intravenous preparations are still unclear to you,
Fresenius Kabi is here to help provide an answer.
In addition to KabiHelp ® , the company’s portfolio