As well as helping reduce incidence of infection, the four-year study, which took place at the University Hospital of Tübingen and published in Scientific Reports (a peer-reviewed journal published by Nature), concluded that the programme also contributed to a ‘mild but sustained’ decrease in the length of hospital stays for patients.
Delivered by the University of Dundee in partnership with BSAC, the free-to-use MOOC was first launched in 2015. Since then, the course has been translated into multiple languages, reaching more than 80,000 learners in over 200 countries.
Tracey Guise, BSAC’s CEO, said: “BSAC is delighted to see that this course – designed to help professionals understand antibiotic resistance, and explore how antimicrobial stewardship can slow down or reduce it – played a central role in an antibiotic stewardship programme that was demonstrated to be ‘feasible and safe and may clinically benefit the hospital admitted patient’”.