With the aim of clarifying the processes the Hospital Pharmacy Service of any hospital must follow to obtain a drug to be administered to patients who need it, MD Anderson Cancer Center Madrid – Hospiten and the Jimenez Diaz Foundation set up a preceptorship for all those professionals wishing to learn more about the subject. The course, held on October 1 and 2 at MD Anderson Madrid – Hospiten, was led by Dr. Enrique Grande, head of the Medical Oncology Service at MD Anderson Madrid – Hospiten, and by Dr. Raquel Sanchez, head of the Hospital Pharmacy Service at the same center.
The program, which aimed to be very instructional, included top speakers like Dr. Cristobal Belda, former director of the National School of Public Health and charged with giving the first talk of the conference, who spoke about the current situation of the National Health System. Then, Drs. Raul Diez and Laura Lopez, of the Hospital Pharmacy Service at the Getafe University Hospital, closely examined the different processes for acquiring drugs (decision making, contracts, types of negotiation) and dispensing these to the patients (pharmaceutical training, managing patients and so on), and of course, the subject of the technological means needed to manage the supply chain and deal with millions of data. Finally, a debate involving all the speakers was opened on the differences between hospital pharmacy processes in a wide variety of countries like Colombia, Brazil, Malaysia, Algeria or Spain.
On the second day of the conference, Dr. Sanchez described her experience in the Hospital Pharmacy Service at MD Anderson Madrid – Hospiten and Dr. Javier Becares, head of the Hospital Pharmacy Service at the Jimenez Diaz Foundation, spoke of the day-to-day in the hospital pharmacy of a public hospital and the differences in management between a public center and a private one. Finally, the preceptorship ended its program with an interesting talk about how these processes affect the diagnosis and treatment of patients, the philosophy and rationale behind the development of these drugs, and about the access patients have to the latest drugs.