The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 264 No 7083 p273
February 12, 2000 Forum

American Society of Health-system Pharmacists

ISMP honours UK pharmacists

Health care delivery is changing rapidly and that brings new opportunities for error, according to a speaker at the 34th midyear clinical meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), held in Orlando, Florida, from December 5 to 9, 1999. Almost 16,500 people gathered at the Orange County convention centre for the meeting, including participants from 35 countries. This three-page report, contributed by Laurence Goldberg (consultant pharmacist) and Christine Clark (medical writer) looks at some of the topics covered

At a dinner hosted by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices at the ASHP midyear meeting, awards were presented to Dr David Cousins (chief pharmacist, Derby hospitals trust) and Dr David Upton (director of pharmacy, Glenfield hospital, Leicester) by Mr Michael Cohen (president, ISMP). The awards recognised their work in establishing a medication error reporting programme in the UK and their collaborative authorship of ongoing features on medication error prevention in hospital pharmacy and nursing publications.

Dr Cousins (right) and Dr Upton (centre) receive their awards from Mr Cohen

Other topics discussed include:

New opportunities for error in health delivery systems
Automated despensing
Poster highlights
ASHP news
Performance enchancing drugs in sport