University Hospital Basel
Prof. Dr. Widmer earned his MD degree in Switzerland, where he completed his fellowship in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He is a core member of the ‘patient safety’ program of the WHO, a past President of the Swiss Society for Hospital Epidemiology, and an editorial advisory board member of the journals ‘Clinical Infectious Diseases’, ‘Clinical Microbiology’, ‘Infection’ and ‘Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology’. Furthermore, he is a former board member of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and a member of the guidelines committee of the Infectious disease society of America. He is co-founder and president of the National Center for Infection Prevention (www.swissnoso.ch) and is leading multicenter pilot project on prevention of surgical site infections, antibiotic stewardship and outbreak investigations. His research interests are the control of multiresistant pathogens such as MRSA, surgical site infections, in particular implant-associated infections, and C. difficile infections. He is chairing the guidelines committee for C.difficile prevention 2018 of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID). His current position is deputy chief of the division of infectious diseases and hospital epidemiology, and head of hospital epidemiology at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland.