2019 SEFH National Survey: service portfolio, care activities, education and research in Spain's hospital pharmacy departments.

OBJECTIVE

To report on the results obtained from the 2019 SEFH National Survey regarding the service portfolio, care activities, training  programs and research work of Spanish hospital pharmacy departments.

METHOD

In March 2019, SEFH designed and distributed a questionnaire containing 77 questions grouped into 8 domains to its 368  affiliated hospital pharmacy departments. The questionnaire included an  additional section on the activities carried out in 2017 and 2018.

RESULTS

The overall response rate was 54.3%. Sixty-nine percent of hospitals were public and 75% were general hospitals. A total of 88.6% of hospital pharmacy departments provided pharmaceutical care to inpatients, whereas 77.5% and 65% treated outpatients and  ambulatory patients, respectively. Sterile formulations were prepared by  70.6% of pharmacy departments, while 12% measured drug levels in  bodily fluids; 76.9% of hospitals with more than 1,000 beds prepared  pharmacokinetic reports. In 2018, hospital pharmacies provided for a  mean of 929 patients a month and 2,680 a year. The amount of  formulations (sterile and non-sterile) prepared was 10,394,492, sterile  formulations accounting for 62.6%. The average amount of clinical trials  managed in hospitals with ≥ 500 and ≥ 1000 beds was of 186.2 and  421.8, respectively. The median of number of undergraduate tuition  agreements between pharmacy departments and universities was 1 (IQR:  0-2); 21.5% of pharmacy departments had no agreements with any  university. The mean number of undergraduate pharmacy students per  hospital pharmacy was 4.12 (SD: 8,26). A total of 290 pharmacists were  associate professors at some university. Fifteen percent of pharmacists  held a certification from the Board of Pharmacy Specialties, 55.3% of them in the specialty of oncology. Hospital pharmacy departments employed a  mean of 1.31(SD: 2,23) PhD holders. From those which reported the  impact factor of their publications, 60% had an impact factor of zero while  in 19.6% the impact factor was ≥ 10.

CONCLUSIONS

Care of out-patients and medication compounding are increasingly the main activities performed in Spanish hospital  pharmacies, while there is still considerable room for improvement in the  area of clinical pharmacokinetics. Pharmacy departments are generally  committed to training as a key activity, while scientific output is still limited despite the increase in the number of PhD pharmacist.