Department News 2026

Spring was dominated by the Semesters teaching tasks, which is always a fun and rewarding time. We work hard on helping our final year Master students to start on the journey of developing their own professional role identity. Whichever chosen aspect of the profession entices them. Discussions, interdisciplinary communication classes and a first brush with reflection practices propel them forward to finalise their MA Pharmacy journey.

We are pleased to say that some of these didactic teaching concepts have made it into the Austrian Atlas der Guten Lehre.

Judge for yourself:

• Uebung Arzneimitteltherapiesicherheit Gespraeche Gestalten Verantwortung Uebernehmen
• Von der Kontroverse zur Kompetenz Diskussionskultur als Praxisvorbereitung Fuer Apotheker

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Danielle had her final oral presentation of her outstanding PhD work at the international Health Services and Pharmacy Practice research conference in Belfast. We are proud to say that she has now submitted her final PhD thesis entitled “Drug related problems in Austrian community pharmacy practice” which she will be defending on the 21st September.

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Both Ivana and Aqeel joined in representing our wee department on the international stage.

Ivana attended the 17th Pancretan Pharmaceutical Conference, 16-17th May 2026, Heraklion, Cretein Greece to give an invited talk on “Pharmaceutical care: next directions in pharmacy practice - From medication supply to outcomes-driven services”.

Aqeel attended the Annual Hospitz Austrian Hospice Palliative Care Association conference in Graz. We are pleased to say that he walked away with the Poster Prize for the Best Scientfic work for his poster entitled: “Ein systematisches Review über medikamentöse Risiken bei Delirium in DemenzpatientInnen”.

To confirm our reputation as Experts across Europe, Ivana gave a Workshop on “Anticholinergic medicines: Medication Management, prescribing cascades and deprescribing” to an international audience hosted by the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy and an invited lecture at Craiova university entitled “Current practices on prescribing and deprescribing antibiotic treatment for patients on long-term antibiotic treatment for chronic pulmonary conditions”.

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Danielle then moved on to Groningen University to represent our department at the International Pharmacy Game Circle (IPGC) meeting. Our outstanding ERASMUS student Lieke Maas who has spent the past 6 months in our department conducting her Mastersprojekt on identifying the competencies and entrustable professional activities (EPAs) used across the IPGC during the international pharmacy undergraduate curricula, presented her work.

Under Danielles expert guidance they were able to not only map out the relevant competencies and activities undertaken by all Universities but also spark an intense discussion about the future use of the Pharmacy Game in pharmacy undergraduate education.

Thanks to Lieke and Danielles stellar work we won the prize for most engaged student engagement prior to the use of the Pharmacy Game which we will be implementing in our new pharmacy Masters curriculum here at the University of Innsbruck (Oct. 2026 start of the pilot. Oct 2027 full roll out).

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We are very sad to bid Lieke Farewell as she returns home to complete her pharmacy degree. We will miss her cheery smile around the department.

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On the topic of ERASMUS students a huge congratualtions to both Kara and Ásta who successfully defended their Mastersthesis at the Univeristy of Reykjavik, after spending 6 months hard work in Innsbruck.

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In addition to some fabulous team social events such as a BBQ and a night at the darkness restaurant “Sinne”, we have some more publication success to report. We are delighted to add the following two papers to our long list of recent publication successes:

1. Ivana Tadić, Freyja Jónsdóttir, Marianna Koroly, Renate Groß, Anita Elaine Weidmann. Pharmacological prevention and treatment of delirium: a systematic review of published clinical psychiatry guidelines. Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-026-00383-2
2. BMJ publication: Exploring the association between medication, patient-specific factors and delirium in hospitalised patients: a 10-year retrospective, population-based cohort study in Iceland (2026-05-26) doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-108215https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/16/5/e108215.full.pdf

Finally we have also been working hard to look after “tomorrow” by taking part in the “X. Lehreplattform” hosted by the Univeristy in Obergurgl, where we contributed to help shape teaching quality across the Univeristy. We also travelled to the Univeristy in Graz to help inspire the next generation of undergraduate pharmacy students there to drive the professional role profile development across Austria in the future alongside the wonderful Univ.-Prof. Dr. Astrid Ortner.

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Finally, ESCP members helping with event that took place earlier this year have kindly produced a video containing interviews and visuals from the event. Take a look. 

July and August will bring a little well-deserved break from all the travelling. But rest assured we won’t be resting. We will use this time to develop our brand-new teaching concept for our new BA and MA curricula in pharmacy. So watch this space…

Wishing you all a wonderful summer

Another busy month has passed. We took part in “Krach für die Wissenschaft“ to demonstrate in Innsbruck city centre against the defunding of science.

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The dept. had fantastic month teaching communication skills in pharmacy practice to pharmacy Master students.

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Department members also enjoyed a fun team evening out to celebrate our successes and bit our lovely Icelandic ERASMUS Students, Kara and Ásta, farewell.

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Our success included Danielle presenting her research as an oral presentation at the Health Services Research in Pharmacy Practice conference in Belfast.

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Aqeel, presenting his research as a poster presentation at the Interdisziplinäres Studierendensymposium „Junge Perspektiven. Zukunft Palliative Care“ organised by the Österreichische Palliativ Gesellschaft, in Graz. Aqeel came home with the coveted Science Poster Award and passed his Fit4Funding course FFG course with 99%.

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And of course we have some more publications for this month:

• Batista, J.P.B., Weidmann, AE., Mallarini, E., Henman, MC., Passarani, I. Evolution of community pharmacy services in the European Union and beyond: a cross-country survey of 33 national pharmacy organisations. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (2026), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-026-02137-9
• Jónsdóttir F., Schintler JA., Stauffer R., Sigurdur G, Weidmann AE.  Exploring the association between medication, patient specific-factors and delirium in hospitalised patients: A ten-year retrospective, population-based cohort study in Iceland. BMJ Open, 2026. [Accepted for publication]
• Hoti, K., Munir, F., Weidmann, A.E. Call for papers for the themed collection on Transforming Pharmacy Practice with Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Solutions. International Journal of Pharmacy Practice (2026), https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpp/riag046
• Schintler J., Weidmann A.E., Jónsdóttir F. Medication associated risk in causation, prevention, and treatment of chemotherapy associated delirium in oncology patients 18 years and over: A systematic review. (2026) PROSPERO CRD420261380563. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420261380563.

Spring has sprung and we have been very busy bees.

We had the pleasure of welcoming two new team members.

Sylvia has joined our team as our administrative assistant. She is a wonderful addition to our team, and we are delighted to welcome her into our growing multinational family. A huge thank you at this stage to Monika (Egger-Büssing) who has been looking after us since March 2022. She did this in addition to her normal job as administrative assistant  for the Pharmacology department, without any remuneration. Monika has not only been instrumental in helping this department get set up and out of the starting blocks, but Monika has also brought so much joy to our wee team. We will miss you dearly but you will always have a special place in our team. Thank you Monika.

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The second wonderful addition to our team is Julia Schintler. Julia has started with us as PhD student working on the medication associated risks for delirium in oncology patients. Julia is no stranger to our department, she already completed her Bachelor- and Masters degree with us, and we are very excited that she has now joined us for the continuation of her research journey.

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3000 kilometres away from Innsbruck, in Reykjavik Iceland another PhD has become an associate member of our team. Helga Rút Steinsdottír will be working on the medication associated risks for delirium in peri-operative patients together with our wonderful colleague and friend Assoc.-Prof. Freyja Jónsdóttir. Helga-rut came to visit us in February where she already helped with the PCNE/ESCP conference, and we look forward for her to stay for several months in the coming year.

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This month, our research and teaching has taken us abroad to exciting places. The University of Lisbon invited us to give a talk on ”The most impactful research studies in pharmacy practice research”. It was a giant honour to have been invited to deliver this prestigious inaugural lecture and happily reflects our continued international profile development. (By the way, you can now listen to a Podcast of that lecture on our homepage).

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Barcelona was next on the travel itinerary to attend the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) congress and attend the annual BMJ Editorial Board meeting for the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacist (EJHP). It’s always a privilege to meet the colleagues from all over Europe who are working hard to ensure quality in research publications.

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We rounded off the month of March in Edinburgh for a very special invitation. I was asked to present my Vision for the future of our profession in a digital era in a talk entitled: ”Pharmaceutical Care: Transforming patient outcomes through clinical excellence in a digital era” and debate this with the author of the original vision for pharmacy practice, Prof. Charles Hepler and many other Scottish colleagues and government officials. In 1990 Prof. Hepler published a paper entitled “opportunities and responsibilities in pharmaceutical care” together with Dr. Linda Strand (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2316538/ ). This publication was the single most important publication which re-defined the role of pharmacists all over the world. Away from a product oriented profession to a healthcare profession who places the patient at the centre of their decision making and takes responsibility for the optimisation of their drug therapy.

Prof. Hepler who attended the event and presented his own vision for the future of pharmaceutical care had not given a talk in 20years and it was an extreme privilege to witness his last ever talk, let alone speak at the same event.

Being invited to now provide an update on this vision in the context of the digitalisation era, in front of not only Prof. Hepler himself but also members of Scottish government and many incredible Scottish Pharmacist colleagues, the place where my own personal journey began and the furthest developed pharmaceutical care profession in Europe (if not the world) is very humbling indeed. (Listen to a Podcast of that lecture on our homepage).

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And if that was not enough we have also has some more publication success. Well done Ivana, Danielle and Jasmin, your hard work is much appreciated and your research will help patients and our professional role development.

• Tadic I, Philips K, Weidmann AE, 2026. The evidence and effects of pharmacist-led services on anticholinergic prescribing using medication appropriateness tools in older adults in outpatient settings: a systematic review. PROSPERO, 2026. CRD 420261327985. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420261327985
• Hochhold D, Stewart D, Nørgaard L, Weidmann AE. Theoretically informed focus group study on pharmacists’ perceptions of the identification, management and documentation of drug related problems in community pharmacy. International Journal of Pharamcy Practice, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpp/riag048
• Stoll J.T., Böhmdorfer-McNair, B,  Lutters, M,  Weidmann, AE. A theoretically informed interview study of strategic stakeholders on their readiness to implement a pharmacist competency framework for hospital practice. Int J Clin Pharm, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-026-02101-7

That’s all for now folks, bring on the month of April

February was an action-packed month for our department and went by in a flash.

It all started with the arrival of our wonderful new ERASMUS+ student Lieke Mass, from the University of Utrecht. Lieke is a final year pharmacy student and will be conducting a project entitled  “Aligning the Pharmacy Game with Clinical Pharmacy Competencies: A Pre-Implementation Study at LFU Innsbruck”. Liekes cheerie personality fits perfectly into our little team and we very much look forward to working with her over the next 6 months.

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We were honoured to be invited to join our Scandinavian colleagues at The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) in Tromsø in their clinical pharmacy and pharmacy research network which encompasses all Scandinavian countries (and some non-Scandinavian ones). We very much look forward to driving pharmacy service development through new research collaborations: https://uit.no/research/clinicalpharmacyresearch .

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Before long, it was time to lift the curtain on our congress project after almost 16months of preparation. Between the 17.-20th February, we welcomed the two most renowned international clinical pharmaceutical societies, Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) and the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP), to Innsbruck.

Aligning with the WHO patient safety theme “Five steps of medication safety”, over 260 scientists and pharmacists from a total of 28 countries across Europe, Asia and Australia came to the University of Innsbruck, to network, exchange research and discuss cutting edge professional topics.

A diverse range of keynote lectures, workshops, and expert courses delivered by internationally renowned experts invited discussion. Topics such as "Improving treatment outcomes through pharmaceutical health services research," "Challenges and solutions in appropriate prescribing and risk-benefit analysis," "Improving medication therapy safety through an electronic, closed-loop system," "Patient engagement in healthcare," and "Preventing patient harm at transition to outpatient care" were discussed in depth.

In close collaboration with the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists and the Association of Austrian Hospital Pharmacists, our department, was responsible for organizing and conducting the event. We are proud to say it all went without a hitch.

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A particular heartfelt thank you goes to our wonderful local team and our extended international team in Iceland. They were wonderful in helping to make this event a success and I can’t thank them enough.

Tune back in for March, cause as the season’s changes to Spring, there will be a lot of great additions to the team and events to report from.

The new year has started just as diverse and exciting as the old one ended.

It all started with the publication of the national ASQS "Recommendations for Improving Medication Therapy Safety (MTS) in Acute Care Facilities and Inpatient Long-Term Care." We are very proud to have contributed to this and hope that these recommendations will be implemented in all Austrian hospitals. Following last year's legislative amendment, this is another important milestone in ensuring medication therapy safety across Austria.

The next piece of good news came from our outstanding PhD student, Ms. Danielle Hochhold, who has been invited to present her work at this year's "Health Service Research and Pharmacy Practice Conference" at Queen's University Belfast. Furthermore, her latest publication (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39775382/) has been selected as one of the top six papers of 2025. Danielle, you are amazing! We are so proud of you!

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In Zams, we were able to contribute to the continuing education series of the interdisciplinary team at the hospital. Medical Director Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wöll and our former master's student Dr. Claudia Praxmarer invited us to present our delirium research project.

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And we weren't idle in other ways either. We were able to contribute a seminar on barriers and facilitating factors in implementation research for the MSc in Drug Therapy Safety at Heidelberg University, gave a presentation on AI in everyday clinical practice for the continuing education series of the hospital pharmacy of the Tyrol Clinics, and published another paper on "A theoretically informed interview study of strategic stakeholders on their readiness to implement a pharmacist competency framework for hospital practice" (DOI to follow). We've been working diligently across the institute on the new BA/MA Pharmacycurriculum, and our AURORA research network met to discuss the next hot off-the-press news – watch this space.

Last but not least, there was plenty to celebrate, from birthdays to passing german exams (B2). We're already looking forward to February, when we'll be welcoming new colleagues, hosting PCNE and ESCP conferences, and hopefully share some more positive news with you.