Origins & Mission
The Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Outcomes Research (CLEO) was founded in 2011 under the auspices of the 1st and 2nd Pediatric Department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, thanks to a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. CLEO’s vision is to improve patient safety and the quality healthcare services. It is dedicated to disease prevention & control, through research, education and tailored-interventions that strengthen the Greek health system. CLEO is operating as an non-governmental, non-profit organisation since October 2014.
From July 2012 through December 2015, CLEO implemented research and evaluation activities aimed at the prevention of hospital acquired infections and the judicious use of antibiotics in two tertiary Children’s Hospitals of Athens, “Aghia Sophia” and “Panagiotis and Aglaia Kyriakou”. Specifically, this work focused on the design and implementation of educational interventions on appropriate practices to improve the quality of the health services and increase the adoption of internationally established guidelines on daily clinical practice. The CLEO research team collaborated with specialized teaching, research, medical-nursing and administrative personnel, both from Greece and abroad, to design and implement these interventions, and to determine their effectiveness.
The encouraging results of the program generated optimism for the possibility of controlling and preventing hospital acquired infections and, consequently, for patient health outcomes. The success of this program, along with the increasingly recognized understanding that hospital acquired infections are largely preventable, attracted the interest of a number of health organizations that wished to support the program’s expansion. From January 2016 to December 2019, through the PHIG project, CLEO expanded its field of action, to include a wider range of pediatric hospitals as well as adult hospitals all over Greece, with the following activities:
- Surveillance and prevention of the most common hospital acquired infections;
- Surveillance and improvement of compliance to selected prevention practices; and
- Surveillance of antibiotic use.
Quality Standards
CLEO aims to:
- Provide reliable services
- Deliver services offered on time and in a successful way
- Constantly improve on its image and internal organization
- Increase the number of projects in which it is actively involved
- Monitor and adhere to the appropiate regulatory frameworks regarding its operation
- Continuously improve the quality of services provided through the implementation of a Quality Management System
In order to achieve the above, CLEO's Senior management & Staff, have declared their commitment to the following principles:
- Strategic analysis of the goals and aspirations of CLEO's collaborators and stakeholders in order to offer specialized services that meet their needs and expectations
- Excellent internal communication between CLEO's Senior management & Staff
- Selection of specialized scientists and their continuous support and training to achive their potential
- Reliable relationships to CLEO external partners and suppliers through regular monitoring and evaluation
- Securing the personal data of CLEO patients, employees, collaborators, consistently complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Close monitoring of time and financial commitments in the services that are performed
- Continuous improvement of the efficiency and effectiveness of CLEO
- Monitoring the Quality Management System through the ther use of internal indicators systematically reviewed
CLEO is ISO 9001:2015 certified. It adheres to International Standards of Quality Management in the areas of project management, design and implementation of clinical, epidemiological and other health-related studies, as well as in conducting training seminars on issues related to the field of health.
