SDA Bocconi with SITA and Shionogi: a new star in the constellation of hospital education

Being safe while in hospital is a must. But this time it has nothing to do with Covid-19: the point is antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at large. A growing issue globally speaking, AMR has an especially strong impact in Italy, where antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the so called “super bacteria”, take an over 10-thousand death toll every year. This is over one third of both mortality from AMR and hospital infection cases, in the EU. In such an alarming context, it is critical to provide innovative antibiotics effectively addressing the phenomenon and at the same time to manage antibiotic treatments in a correct and targeted manner in order to avoid developing resistance even to these new drugs.

The need to strengthen control systems in hospitals has inspired our STAR (STewardship and Antibiotic-Resistance) Program, a managerial education project aimed at hospital pharmacists. They are key figures for supporting, within an antimicrobial stewardship team, the management of infections related to health care assistance, with an expected  impact on timely and appropriate patient access to treatment. And they are the ones who can work to align all health professionals involved in the process. SDA Bocconi and SITA (Società Italiana di Terapia Antinfettiva, Italian Society for Anti-infective Therapy) cooperate in the Program, which has been entirely and unrestrictedly funded by Shionogi Italia, branch of the Japan-based pharma multinational.

Program duration is six months and about 25 hospital pharmacists from various regions in Italy are participating in the first edition. A distance-learning three-days opening session has taken place from November 30 to December 2. Participants will then work on field projects, mentored by the Faculty. The results of the field projects will be presented during the final workshop in Milan next May.

“The Program we have devised aims at strengthening hospital pharmacists’ skills on antimicrobial stewardship, for an appropriate assessment, management and impact evaluation of new antibiotic drugs in day-to-day clinical practice,” explains Claudio Jommi, Professor of Practice in SDA Bocconi’s Government, Health and Not for Profit Knowledge Group. “We have been focused both on technical issues (including HTA applied to antibiotics to support therapeutic choices and impact evaluation) and managerial issues (including relationships with clinicians and performance indicators for antimicrobial stewardship, with a specific focus on antimicrobial resistance). The final goal is a better management, through a collaborative approach among healthcare professionals, of antimicrobial resistance”.

SDA Bocconi School of Mangement