Dr John Kopsidas

John Kopsidas is a pediatric infectious diseases trained physician based in Athens, Greece. His research interests include epidemiology and implementation science in the areas of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), antibiotic stewardship, and vaccine hesitancy. He is a strong believer in the power of data to drive change in healthcare and to facilitate the design of tailor-made interventions to improve patient outcomes, and in the importance of international collaborations and networks. Through his work, he has designed and overseen the establishment of surveillance systems, as well as the implementation of infection-prevention initiatives. Dr. Kopsidas has been a member of ESPID since 2013 and has been dedicated in disseminating scientific information through the ESPID and PIDJ social media accounts to a global audience of both infectious disease specialists and the general public.

Dr. Kopsidas has been motivated in his career by the fragmentary efforts to address antibiotic stewardship and infection prevention that he has witnessed both in Greece and in other countries. In many cases, a lack of communication and poor dissemination of data, knowledge, and resources has led to unnecessarily substandard healthcare quality and patient outcomes. Greece, in particular, has suffered from a paucity of data in the field of healthcare combined with high rates of antimicrobial resistance and overuse of antibiotics. In 2013, he joined the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Outcomes Research (CLEO) in Athens, founded by Dr. Theoklis Zaoutis, whose mission is to improve patient safety and the quality of healthcare services provided by Greek hospitals, with an emphasis on the prevention of HAIs and the judicious use of antibiotics.

In 2018, encouraged by the success of CLEO’s work in Greece, Dr. Kopsidas worked with his mentors Dr. Zaoutis and Dr. Nikos Spyridis to establish RANIN-KIDS (Reducing Antimicrobial use and Nosocomial INfections in KIDS), an international collaborative consortium which aims to fill the critical need for a unified surveillance system for HAIs and antibiotic use in the European pediatric setting, as well as to lower rates of HAIs and of misuse and overuse of antibiotics. RANIN-KIDS is now supported by the Penta Foundation and includes twenty-five hospitals in thirteen countries. Currently, RANIN-KIDS is collaborating with the ESGAP and the newly founded UK-PAS network. Dr Kopsidas has been working for the Penta foundation as a medical advisor since the fall of 2018.

Dr. Kopsidas’ previous work also includes a project to increase seasonal influenza vaccination in a Greek pediatric hospital, which was shortlisted for the 2017 EU NGO Health Award. In 2018, he was selected by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) as an International Ambassador. He is currently pursuing a PhD about the implementation of antibiotic stewardship programs in pediatric hospitals in resource-limited settings.