Digital communication is reshaping clinical pharmacy practice in Denmark. At Region Zealand Hospital Pharmacy, tools such as Microsoft Teams have become integral to real-time collaboration, peer support and shared learning. As Mia Pavelics Rehn and Trine R. H. Andersen explain, this simple shift not only strengthens professional standards but also improves patient care.
Hospital pharmacists across Europe are increasingly seen as vital contributors to clinical decision-making. Their expertise in drug availability, formulations, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics positions them as trusted advisors and educators for colleagues.1
Despite this growing recognition, recent investigations into the hospital pharmacy profession in Europe highlight persistent challenges in implementing clinical pharmacy services.² Some systems still treat pharmacists as logistical or administrative staff rather than clinical partners.
To shift this perception, greater visibility of pharmacists’ contributions to care decisions and patient outcomes is essential. Continued dialogue, advocacy and strategic planning are crucial to ensure that pharmacists are fully integrated into multidisciplinary healthcare teams to improve patient outcomes.
A contract-based service model
In Denmark, clinical pharmacy services are typically contract-based, with hospitals or departments purchasing them directly from the hospital pharmacy.³ This model places strong emphasis on delivering robust, high-quality and well-integrated services. When executed effectively, clinical pharmacy services can ease the workload of clinicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals³ while improving patient outcomes.
The primary role of clinical pharmacists on hospital wards in Denmark is to serve as an accessible resource for healthcare staff facing drug-related questions or challenges. Their expertise facilitates them in providing on-the-spot consultations, conducting medication reviews with inpatients and offering education on pharmaceutical topics. Their multifaceted role combines both generalist and specialist competencies and requires a high level of clinical judgement.
However, the quality of the clinical pharmacy service can vary depending on each pharmacist’s experience and knowledge. Newly qualified pharmacists may feel uncertain or exposed in high-pressure situations, leading to hesitancy or errors. Meanwhile, ward staff may experience inconsistent levels of support, which can negatively affect interdisciplinary trust and collaboration.
Even highly experienced clinical pharmacists are impacted by the demands of working in fast-paced environments, such as emergency care settings. These environments demand fast decision-making, and access to peer support is essential.
Digital communication in Region Zealand
At the Region Zealand Hospital Pharmacy in Denmark, a team of 35 clinical pharmacists supports multiple hospitals, with most pharmacists working part-time in clinical settings. The rest of their time is dedicated to other professional responsibilities. These include medicines information, distribution, patient safety, drug and therapeutic committees, clinical research, and teaching and supervision.
As a result, each contract-based clinical pharmacy service is typically covered by a team of two to five pharmacists. However, only one or two pharmacists are physically present on the ward at any given time. This setup leads to professional isolation from peers while on duty.
No two pharmacists have identical profiles, with each pharmacist having a distinct area of expertise and contributing to multiple work functions. The team also spans a broad range of seniority, from recent graduates to professionals with over 25 years of hospital experience.
This diversity and heterogeneity ensure the team can collectively handle a wide variety of clinical and operational challenges and creates a strong base of both explicit and tacit knowledge – that is, skills, insight and clinical judgement that has been developed over years of experience.4
Close collaboration among pharmacists in the region fosters a strong understanding of each other’s strengths, expertise and areas of specialisation.
Digital collaboration in Region Zealand
For the Region Zealand Hospital Pharmacy, enabling fast and easy communication between colleagues – particularly through instant messaging – helps to enhance professionalism and strengthen the overall quality of their clinical pharmacy services.
Indeed, online chat and instant messaging tools offer robust, real-time communication features including text, voice, video and file sharing that facilitate seamless collaboration across teams, departments and institutions.5
As part of a broader digital transformation strategy, Region Zealand adopted Microsoft Teams across all hospitals and departments to streamline communication. While the platform is accessible by all employees, its use in clinical practice varies significantly.
For the clinical pharmacy services, Teams has been integrated into daily clinical workflows to allow discreet, quick communication among pharmacists.
When a pharmacist is on duty, they now remain digitally connected to the wider team. Teams allows them to quickly see who is available, enabling fast and targeted consultation. The chat function is also discreet, and ideal for use in open-plan workstations or clinical settings where privacy and focus are necessary. This not only boosts individual confidence and professionalism but also supports continuity of care when pharmacists rotate or work part-time in the wards.
Beyond one-on-one chats, Teams also supports dedicated channels for group discussions. These channels are used to flag recurrent prescribing errors, discuss unusual clinical cases, or share updates about drug supply issues. Such shared observations allow the team to coordinate educational interventions, flag concerns to relevant departments or to monitor situations. This strengthens teamwork, supports learning, and enhances the pharmacist’s role as a patient safety advocate.
Naturally, the messaging must comply with data security and confidentiality, with no names or sensitive information shared in the chat.
Practical digital communication insights
To better understand how Teams is being used, the hospital pharmacy analysed three weeks of chat activity. The results were presented as a poster at the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists Congress in March 2025.
Four common themes emerged:
- Questions during medication reviews
- Technical issues with electronic health records
- General clinical discussions and protocol clarifications
- Questions about drug shortages and therapeutic alternatives.
These short, informal exchanges consistently led to more timely, accurate responses to ward staff. They also helped pharmacists learn in context, linking textbook knowledge with real patient cases. This kind of experiential, peer-supported learning is essential for maintaining high professional standards.
For pharmacists at Region Zealand, the Teams chat has become a cornerstone of daily practice. It enables efficient peer consultation and creates a strong sense of connection, even for those working alone. New pharmacists and students especially benefit from the ability to seek guidance quickly, helping them gain confidence and make safer decisions. For senior pharmacists, the platform facilitates collaboration with specialists and the dissemination of best practices.
This ongoing digital communication across experience levels fosters continuous learning and improves understanding of clinical care across departments. It also helps standardise responses to recurring issues, creating a more consistent experience for clinical staff and patients alike. Instant messaging creates a sustainable cycle of interpersonal engagement, which enhances collaboration and strengthens collective expertise within the pharmacy team.
Importantly, the use of instant messaging encourages a culture of mutual support. Studies have shown that organisations benefit from cultivating positive messaging habits, promoting interaction and peer learning. 5 At Region Zealand, these benefits are already becoming evident.
Although contract-based partners work directly with individual pharmacists on the wards, they also benefit from the combined explicit and tacit knowledge of all 35 pharmacists in the hospital pharmacy. This collective expertise enhances service quality and increases the perceived value of clinical pharmacists among ward staff. By delivering the highest standard of clinical pharmacy services, the aim is to raise awareness of the breadth and depth of pharmacists’ competencies.
Conclusion
In a constantly evolving healthcare environment, clinical pharmacists must continuously build on both explicit and tacit knowledge. While new challenges emerge daily, they are seldom new to everyone. Colleagues often hold the answers.
To support this collective development, Region Zealand Hospital Pharmacy introduced digital messaging as a platform for instant peer-to-peer communication. This tool allows pharmacists to easily consult colleagues, share insights and respond more effectively to clinical demands.
By making peer expertise more accessible, the aim is to promote continuous professional learning, enhance collaboration, improve support for ward staff and patients, reduce disruptions due to unavailable supervisors, and elevate the professionalism of clinical pharmacy services.
Ultimately, by strengthening internal communication, we strengthen the care we provide.
Authors
Mia Pavelics Rehn Msc Pharm
Clinical pharmacist
Trine Rune Høgh Andersen MSc Pharm PhD
Clinical pharmacist and head of research
Both of Region Zealand Hospital Pharmacy, Denmark
References
1 Garattini L, Padula A, Mannucci PM. Community and hospital pharmacists in Europe: encroaching on medicine? Intern Emerg Med 2021;16(1):7–10.
2 European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP). Investigation of the hospital pharmacy profession in Europe: Assess and advance hospital pharmacy! Results 2022/2023. Brussels: EAHP; 2023. [Accessed September 2025].
3 Nielsen S, Petersen MB. Klinisk Farmaci 2023 Rapport. Copenhagen: Amgros; 2023. [Accessed September 2025].
4 Summerscales J. Harvesting tacit knowledge for composites workforce development. Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 2024;185:108357.
5 Jiang X et al. Sustainable Interpersonal Interaction: Research on Instant Message and Helping from the Perspective of Sender. Sustainability 2021;13(1):402.
