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Prof. Dr. Matthias Schwenkglenks

Department of Public Health
Profiles & Affiliations

Projects & Collaborations

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Enhancing palliative care in intensive care units (EPIC) - Horizon Europe

Umbrella Project  | 2 Project Members

Palliative care (PC) in ICU


About 10% of all decedents in the population die after admission to an intensive care unit (ICU). These patients often have distressing symptoms and may receive more intense life-prolonging treatment than they would have chosen, their family members often experience lasting distress from the experience and many ICU physicians and nurses are burdened by their perception of potentially non-beneficial care.


The EPIC project aims to sustainably improve palliative care for critically ill patients and their families in the ICU. An interdisciplinary consortium collaborates to provide a novel harmonized palliative care practice model using telemedicine. The project is the first European interventional study on palliative care in the ICU, using a systems-based approach with proactive patient identification, checklist and blended learning targeted to specific requirements of ICU clinicians. Effectiveness of the new model is assessed through a stepped wedge randomized trial with 7 clinical centers from 5 European countries, 23 multi-disciplinary ICUs and enrolment of 2001 patients. Primary outcome is a reduction in ICU stay to relieve suffering. Cost implications and cost effectiveness will be assessed from different perspectives. An evidence-based patient decision aid for critically ill patients is developed. Additional outcomes serve deepen our understanding of barriers and facilitators and provide ethical recommendations for the use of telepalliative care in civic society.


The vision of EPIC is to contribute to a mind shift from a narrow focus on prolonging life towards more holistic care. A European patient and family advisory group is implemented to engage patients and family members from the start and co-create open-access information to increase acceptance of palliative care. Telemedicine offers a low-cost solution to spread the model to all regions in Europe and open new avenues for patient-centered care.

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Health economic analysis alongside DROPIT trial

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

Worldwide, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are frequently prescribed, and their use is continuingly increasing. PPI use is often inappropriate, they are prescribed for excessive durations or inadequate indications which contribute to adverse health outcomes. Reducing inappropriate PPIs could improve health and reduce human and financial costs. Limited studies have evaluated patient-focused deprescribing interventions to reduce inappropriate PPIs in the primary care setting. The involvement of general practitioners (GPs) and patients in deprescribing (to stop or reduce PPIs) is a necessity. Aims of the DROPIT trial: a) To investigate the effectiveness of an intervention for patients and GPs to deprescribe inappropriate PPIs in adults i) On the co-primary outcomes: - change from baseline in the dose of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) at the 12-month follow-up - change from baseline in the Reflux Disease Questionnaire (RDQ) at the 12-month follow-up ii) Secondary outcomes: individual components of the co-primary outcomes, atypical gastrointestinal symptoms, diagnoses and conditions linked to PPI use, number and type of concurrent medications, medication adherence, prescribing of PPIs and alternative anti-reflux treatments, healthcare utilization, health-related quality of life, and side effects related to PPI deprescribing b) To evaluate the implementation of the intervention as well as GPs' and patients' intervention fidelity in a mixed-methods process evaluation c) To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the trial intervention through health economic analyses. This part is in the responsibility of Uni basel, Research Group M. Schwenkglenks

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SwissPandemic&AmR-Health Economy Awareness Detect (Flagship project), Subproject 4: Societal and Health Economics

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The SPEARHEAD project, led by the University of Basel Innovation Office with funding from the Innosuisse Flagship programme, brings together research institutions (University of Basel, SUPSI), university hospitals (UKBB, USB, CHUV), and industry partners (Novartis, SwissRe, SWICA) to develop novel approaches to strengthen antimicrobialsStewardship. The project builds on existing initiatives and expertise in pandemic response to rapidly deploy digital solutions to mitigate the clinical, economic, and societal impacts of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) by enabling real-time data flow to and from decision-makers, better use of big data for risk stratification, timely diagnostics that can leapfrog centralized laboratory infrastructure, citizen and community engagement, and early consideration of resource needs and efficiency to inform prioritization of candidate technologies. The tools being developed within SPEARHEAD are aimed to be easily adaptable to address future emerging infections and thereby result in a more resilient healthcare system and society. ECPM leads the Societal and Health Economics work package of SPEARHEAD that aims to analyse the cost-effectiveness of the piloted solutions, inform their scale-up, and consider their broader societal and equity implications.

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Measurement properties of EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L in recording self-reported health status in older patients with substantial multimorbidity and polypharmacy

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

Background The EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L are two generic health-related quality of life measures, which may be used in clinical and health economic research. They measure impairment in 5 aspects of health: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of the EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L in measuring the self-reported health status of older patients with substantial multimorbidity and associated polypharmacy. Methods Between 2017 and 2019, we administered EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L to a subset of patients participating in the OPERAM trial at 6 months and 12 months after enrolment. The OPERAM trial is a two-arm multinational cluster randomised controlled trial of structured medication review assisted by a software-based decision support system versus usual pharmaceutical care, for older people (aged ≥ 70 years) with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. In the psychometric analyses, we only included participants who completed the measures in full at 6 and 12 months. We assessed whether responses to the measures were consistent by assessing the proportion of EQ-5D-5L responses, which were 2 or more levels away from that person's EQ-5D-3L response. We also compared the measures in terms of informativity, and discriminant validity and responsiveness relative to the Barthel Index, which measures independence in activities of daily living. Results 224 patients (mean age of 77 years; 56% male) were included in the psychometric analyses. Ceiling effects reported with the EQ-5D-5L (22%) were lower than with the EQ-5D-3L (29%). For the mobility item, the EQ-5D-5L demonstrated better informativity (Shannon's evenness index score of 0.86) than the EQ-5D-3L (Shannon's evenness index score of 0.69). Both the 3L and 5L versions of EQ-5D demonstrated good performance in terms of discriminant validity, i.e. (out of all items of the EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L, the pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression items had the weakest correlation with the Barthel Index. Both the 3L and 5L versions of EQ-5D demonstrated good responsiveness to changes in the Barthel Index. Conclusion Both EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L demonstrated validity and responsiveness when administered to older adults with substantial multimorbidity and polypharmacy who were able to complete the measures.