Unnecessary and inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics, along with inadequate Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures play a crucial role in antimicrobial resistances (AMR) and the spread of multi-drug resistant organisms. AMR is now a significant global public health threat, significantly increasing the morbidity and mortality of patients, especially in the paediatric population.
In the past, AMR has been overcome by introducing new broad-spectrum agents. However, there has been a steady decline in the development of new antimicrobials since the 1980s. The development of country-level and institutional programs on antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and IPC are now considered key instruments to tackle this threat to global health.
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What is Team-COACH?
Training and capacity building in antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control in children through an interactive electronic tool and a European collaborative group
Team-COACH is a three-year project co-funded by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) and led by a consortium of experienced partners in Spain, Italy, and Greece, countries experiencing among the highest AMR rates in Europe. Penta is a partner in the project.
Why is Team-COACH needed?
Although the fight against AMR remains a high priority for the healthcare sector, focused, organised, and systematic efforts to improve prescribing and reduce the spread of infections are still lacking in the paediatric setting.
Team-COACH sets out to fill this gap by providing an innovative training platform for healthcare professionals for capacity building and improving practices in IPC and AMS.
What is Team-COACH’s goal?
The aim of the project is to create an innovative training platform for capacity building and improving practices in IPC and AMS in the paediatric inpatient and outpatient settings, including secondary and primary healthcare services. A Network of Team-COACH centres receiving training will be created across different South European countries – Spain, Italy, and Greece.
Team-COACH will provide flexible training programmes in the local language (English, Spanish, Italian, Greek), targeting different profiles of healthcare workers, both in hospitals and primary care structures.
Team-COACH will also create capture forms for the clinical outcome assessment, to evaluate the impact of the training programmes and performing a monitoring of the everyday clinical practice over time.
Team-COACH is co-funded by the European Union (EU4H-2021-PJ-14 – GA Nº101079939 – TEAM-COACH). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HaDEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.