EPIC

Welcome to the web-site of the EPIC project!

Oncology is undoubtedly currently the fastest developing area of healthcare. More or less every month new drugs come to the market; many of them are formulations for oral administration. This means that the complex treatment of often co-morbid oncology patients is moving from a supervised hospital setting to the patient’s home and dispensing of potent oral anticancer drugs to general community pharmacies.

The project EPIC targets the pharmacists involved in the dispensing of oral anticancer drugs with emphasis on education and adherence, and it aims to improve current practice in different countries. Our goals are to improve the quality of oncology patient counselling by pharmacists and to improve patients understanding of their pharmacotherapy.

We will first survey the current situation and problems at dispensing of oral anticancer drugs in the EU. Based on the results we will design optimal post-graduate education for pharmacists about oncology topics and develop IT-tools that assist the pharmaceutical counselling process. This will allow the pharmacist quick access to essential information on oral oncology drugs including important advice for patients as well as useful service options like the preparation of treatment plans for the patient. By evaluating user satisfaction with the IT-tools and educational programme and subsequent implementation of improvements, we establish a ‘learning system’. This system will be put to effect in the participating partner countries and later made available for implementation in other EU-countries.These measures will improve patients’ self-efficacy regarding his or her disease and therapy and, consequently, will enhance adherence.