Jonas Marschall, MD is the Physician-in-Chief and Director of the Infection Prevention Program at Bern University Hospital in Switzerland, part of the management team of the Department of Infectious Diseases, and an Associate Professor with the University of Bern. The focus of his research is the epidemiology of infectious diseases acquired in the hospital setting and their causes, management, and prevention. He is particularly interested in urinary tract infections (UTI), bacteremias, and surgical site infections, and he currently holds a Swiss National Science Foundation project grant on the country’s surveillance data of surgical site infections. Prior to his current job, he was Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine, and the recipient of an institutional career development award (KL2) to study the relationship between E. coli UTI and bacteremias in hospitalized patients. In addition, he received other grants for elucidating bacterial virulence factors (such as the BIRCWH award, NIH NCATS) and on reducing the risk associated with transurethral urinary catheters (via the Barnes-Jewish Patient Safety Fellowship).
For the past few years, he has been a board member for both the Swiss National Center for Infection Prevention and the Swiss Center for Antibiotic Resistance and was able to collaborate on a variety of national strategies in the field and at the same time utilize these centers’ datasets for research purposes. Switzerland is starting a catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) surveillance in 2021, for which he is serving as the project lead. Lastly, he has overseen the Covid-19 response of the hospital consortium associated with Bern University Hospital over the past 18 months. Ultimately, his goal is to find ways of improving patient safety by reducing the risk of infection and implement these measures in our healthcare systems. Being a lead author in the third iteration of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) HAI compendium on preventing catheter-associated bloodstream infections, is one of the highlights of his career and an example of how information on best practices can be disseminated for the benefit of his patients. The focus of his research is the epidemiology of infectious diseases acquired in the hospital setting and their causes, management, and prevention. He is particularly interested in urinary tract infections (UTI), bacteremias, and surgical site infections.