The annual award, now in its eighth year, is to encourage, support and promote information technology initiatives and best practice in the use of IT in hospital pharmacy. In particular, initiatives are sought where IT has made a positive difference to the provision of pharmaceutical services or resulted in direct benefit to the patients or staff. The award, sponsored by FDBE and aimed at pharmacy departments and individuals, is for the sum of two thousand five hundred pounds.

Projects may be related to patient care, clinical services, medicines management, decision support, electronic prescribing, or any other IT application that improves pharmaceutical services. This year's award has been won by the Pharmacy Department of The Princess of Wales Hospital at Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University NHS Trust. The project team was commended for successfully developing the Electronic Transfer of Care (eTOC), an electronic discharge summary which has replaced the ineffective and error-prone paper process at the hospital.

Last year's winner was the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust for its development of a Medicines Management e-learning package to improve the effectiveness of medicines management training across the Trust. In 2007, University College London Hospitals NHS Trust won the award for creating a solution which used IT to manage and electronically store information about clinical trials taking place within the Trust.

Graeme Richardson, Chairman of the IT Interest Group enthuses, "We are delighted that FDBE has chosen to continue to support this award. Year on year the entries we receive are of a very high standard and they demonstrate the positive impact that IT can have upon the way pharmacists work and the way in which services are delivered. We hope that this award will continue to highlight some of the most successful projects and inspire others in the use of information technology."

The deadline for entries is 31 December 2009 and the award will be presented in the spring of 2010. To apply please see the 2010 award leaflet available soon via the awards pages at www.ukcpa.org or www.ghp.org.uk.

Related news articles:

• First DataBank's Profile

About First DataBank Europe
First DataBank Europe (FDBE) is the UK's leading provider of drug knowledge bases and active clinical decision support. With over 25 years' experience of maintaining, developing and integrating drug knowledge bases across the entire healthcare spectrum, FDBE has unrivalled expertise and knowledge in this specialist field. NHS Connecting for Health has chosen FDBE to provide drug-related clinical decision support.

Patient safety is the driving force behind our business. Through the effective integration of our products into clinical systems, we enable safer prescribing, dispensing and administration.

Our Multilex Drug Data File - the UK's most comprehensive and widely used drug knowledge base - is in daily use by thousands of healthcare professionals in the UK.

For further information visit www.firstdatabank.co.uk

GHP/UKCPA
The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists IT Interest Group formed in 2001 and joined forces with UK Clinical Pharmacy Association in 2006 to establish a joint group. This group now holds an annual seminar. Delegates have an active interest in the implementation of new technologies to support the previsions of pharmacy clinical services.