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Title: Hospital-based interventions to contain antibiotic resistance (Acronym AIM)
Keywords: Team-work (incl. interdisciplinary, inter-professional)
Laboratory science (incl.. quality assurance)
Health facilities (hospitals)
Disease prevention & control
Bacterial
Country: Belgium
Institution: Belgium - Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine
Course coordinator: Prof. dr. Jan Jacobs
Date start: 2020-04-20
Date end: 2020-05-08
About duration and dates: 3 weeks
Classification: advanced optional
Mode of delivery: Face to face
Course location:
Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), Nationalestraat 155, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
ECTS credit points: 5 ECTS credits
SIT: 105 contact hours and 40 self-study hours
Language: English
Description:
Overall learning objective:
At the end of the course participants should be able to:

- develop action plans for containment of antibiotic resistance (ABR) in hospitals in low-resource settings (LRS), in at least one of the three following themes: Antibiotic Stewardship, Infection Control or Microbiological Surveillance (AIM).

Specific learning objectives:

At the end of the course all participants should be able to:

- categorize common and tropical health-care associated pathogens according to environmental stability, infectious dose and route of transmission
- categorize the most important groups of antibiotics and apply the major rules for rational use of antibiotics
- implement basic infection control measures (standard precautions, clean-up of spills, disinfection and antisepsis, correct use of personal protective equipment)
- co-organize a Hospital Infection Control and Antibiotic Stewardship committee
- communicate, teach and train at the level of the specific audience

Participants to the Antibiotic Stewardship theme should be able to:
- implement and teach principles of rational use of antibiotics at patient and hospital level
- collect and interpret quantitative and qualitative data on antibiotic use
- interpret antibiotic susceptibility results into rational antibiotic choices for the individual patient
- translate antibiotic resistance data into antibiotic treatment recommendations and a local antibiotic policy
- implement and evaluate an antibiotic policy at hospital level

Participants to the Infection Control theme should be able to:

- select common disinfectants and antiseptics for each infection control application
- apply and monitor appropriate sterilization and disinfection methods
- set-up hospital-based implementation plans (hand hygiene, hospital waste management…)
- apply extended precautions (contact, droplet and airborne)
- develop basics of good nursing practices

Participants to the Microbiological Surveillance theme should be able to:
- perform quality assured clinical bacteriology (from indications over laboratory work-up to reporting)
- collect, interpret and report antibiotic resistance data for individual patients
- aggregate laboratory-based data into passive surveillance data and report them efficiently
- sample, work-up and report selected specimens as support for infection control
Assessment Procedures:
- Pre-test (formative): consists of a set of multiple choice questions made available through Moodle, before the start of the course. The pre-test will evaluate the knowledge of the participants about the basic concepts of ABR.

- In order to obtain the credit certificate, participants will be assessed as follows (summative):

• Personal project / assignment “My Hospital”: each participant has to develop, present and defend in front of an expert committee an ABR-containment plan for his/her health care facility 40%
• Multiple choice & short answer questions Assessment of acquired knowledge 40%
• Group work presentation “Hospital Committee” 20%
Content:
The AIM course focuses on the three main themes of ABR-containment in the low-resource setting hospital as well as on their interactions:

1. Antibiotic Stewardship (ABS)
2. Infection Control (IC)
3. Microbiological Surveillance (MS)

A common part addressing the topics common to the three themes:
• Key pathogens and antibiotics
• Health care associated infections
• Key aspects in Infection Prevention & Control
• Interventions to contain ABR, including Hospital Infection Prevention & Control Committee and Antibiotic Stewardship Committee
• Principles of Antibiotic Stewardship
• Blood sampling, handwashing and wound care
• Blood & other cultures: indications, sampling and transport
• SOP’s, posters, writing for clarity

Specific topics of particular relevance for each of the three themes:

Antibiotic Stewardship track/theme:

• (Ir)rational use of antibiotics
• Gathering/understanding antibiotic use data
• From antimicrobial susceptibility testing to surveillance report
• Translation antimicrobial susceptibility testing into guideline & policy
• Prescriber and patient perspective
• Over and under access of antibiotics

Microbiological Surveillance track/theme:

• Working-up cultures in the laboratory
• Reading and interpreting antimicrobial susceptibility testing results
• Communication individual laboratory results
• Aggregate laboratory data to surveillance report
• Environmental sampling
• Sterilization: packing, labeling & use of containers

Infection Prevention & Control track/theme:

• Essential requirements facility, including waste management
• Antiseptics/disinfectants
• Reusable material & equipment
• Surfaces
• Extended precautions: contact, droplet, airborne
• Invasive devices and care bundles
Methods:
The AIM course consists of plenary lectures, hands-on sessions (including bench- and practical exercises and a carrousel ), case discussions, data analysis, role plays, a debate and a mini-symposium.

• Participants will spend 70% of the contact hours in the “truncus communis” (common part) sessions, and 30% in track/theme-specific sessions.

• A multidisciplinary group work (“Hospital Committee”): using a Problem Based Learning methodology, participants from the Antibiotic Stewardship, Microbiological Surveillance and Infection Control groups are organized in a Hospital Infection Control or Antibiotic Stewardship Committee. Role-plays are included within the multidisciplinary team of participants. A tutor is assigned to each group.

• A personal assignment (“My Hospital”): participants will elaborate an action plan to contain ABR in their facility through self-study, a portfolio and literature study. A personal coach is assigned to each participant.

• An online course platform for pre-assessments, pre-reads and relevant course material will be available via Moodle.
Prerequisites:
The course aims in particular at health care workers (medical doctors, nursing staff, clinical officers, pharmacists, biomedical scientists and laboratory staff) with professional experience in hospital facilities in Low Resource Settings and involved in Antibiotic Stewardship, Infection Prevention & Control and/or Microbiological Surveillance activities (AIM).

Participants should be holders of a (para)medical university degree of minimum 240 ECTS credits or equivalent and have two years of relevant professional experience. Exceptions to the degree requirement are possible based on level and relevance of professional experience.

Proficiency in the course language is required. Candidates who are non-native speakers of the course language or whose language of previous instruction is not the same as the course language, must be able to prove their language proficiency with a TOEFL paper-based 580, computer-based 230, Internet-based 88 or IELTS 6.5. or equivalent.
Attendance:
Minimum of 12 and a maximum of 21 participants
Selection:
A selection committee will select course participants, based on following criteria:
• Professional experience
• Personal motivation
• Commitment from the home institution to engage in ABR
• Personal project: participants are asked to apply with a draft outline presenting the key problems related to ABR in their care facility
• Application of participants collaborating in the same health care facility is encouraged (so called “cluster applications”)
• Enrolment in tropEd MIH curriculum
• Gender balance of the participants will be taken into account
Fees: 1600 Euro
Scholarships:
A limited number of full or partial scholarships are available for applicants from Belgian Directorate General for Development (DGD) partner countries (see list on ITM website, www.itg.be).
tropEd accreditation:
Accredited in October 2016. This accreditation is valid until October 2021.
Remarks:
From 2017/18 onwards it is considered to organize the AIM-course as a blended course, in order to optimize and harmonize participants pre-knowledge and increase efficiency of students’ performance during the Face-to-Face component.

Application deadline: 2017-10-01
Email Address: gvheusden@itg.be
Date Of Record Creation: 2016-11-03 17:23:30 (W3C-DTF)
Date Of Record Release: 2016-11-03 21:40:36 (W3C-DTF)
Date Record Checked: 2017-07-20 (W3C-DTF)
Date Last Modified: 2019-10-08 08:16:06 (W3C-DTF)

Fifteen years of the tropEd Masters in International Health programme: what has it delivered? Results of an alumni survey of masters students in international health

L. Gerstel1, P. A. C. Zwanikken1, A. Hoffman2, C. Diederichs3, M. Borchert3 and B. Peterhans2

1 Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
3 Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health, Charite – Universit€atsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany