The regional activity of the Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization
World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centers are designated by the WHO Director-General to support WHO programs at the national, international, inter-regional and global levels. The Centers also have the function of strengthening local resources in terms of information, services, research and training to improve the level of health care provided.
In the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Medicines and Medical Devices Governance Area of the Hospital Assistance Sector (General Directorate for Personal Care, Health and Welfare) is home to the WHO Collaborating Center in Evidence-Based Research Synthesis and Guideline Development.
The Center has been active since 2007 and its current designation is valid until 2024, for a period of 4 years, at the end of which it can be renewed for a new four-year period, by agreeing specific objectives with WHO.
Aims and Activities of the Center
The activities of the Center focus on medicines by means of two mandates by WHO:
1. Providing technical and methodological support to WHO during the updating of the Model List of Essential Medicines
Upon WHO mandate, the Center periodically develops applications with the aim of updating the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. The List contains the medicines considered to be the most effective and safe to meet the priority health needs of a health system and is intended as a reference handbook for national and regional health authorities around the world.
The production of the applications includes systematic retrieval, qualitative evaluation and synthesis of the scientific evidence on the drugs for which inclusion in the List of Essential Medicines is requested. The work of the Center is coordinated with the programs of the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Area of the Hospital Care Sector of the Emilia-Romagna Region, as the methods and contents of the applications are also used by the regional working groups on drugs informing the decisions of the Regional Therapeutics Board (Commissione Regionale del Farmaco).
Applications submitted
Since 2007, the Center has produced and submitted applications to WHO on the following drugs: sumatriptan for acute migraine attacks (inclusion), lamotrigine for epilepsy (inclusion), dopaminergic agonists for Parkinson's disease (exclusion), chlorhexidine solution for umbilical cord ( inclusion), amiodarone for chronic heart failure (inclusion), simvastatin for secondary prevention of cardiovascular events (inclusion).
2. Providing methodological support for better standardization of relevant formats for information on essential medicines
Various entities (academic institutions, public and private health facilities, the pharmaceutical industry and individuals) develop and submit applications to WHO for updating the Essential Medicines List. To ensure scientific rigor, transparency and reproducibility of the contents, proposers should adopt a common methodology in line with the best quality standards. The Center offers methodological support to WHO to improve the format and structure of the applications.
3. Courses and training activities
The WHO Collaborating Center can activate and promote, also in collaboration with the WHO Headquarters, short training courses on topics related to the List of Essential Medicines, on issues related to treatments access, innovation and sustainability of pharmacological therapies.
4. Thematic working groups
The WHO Collaborating Center can promote working groups and institutional collaborations aimed at the shared production of documents on areas of particular healthcare relevance such as, for example, access to medicines and the sustainability of pharmacological therapies, supporting the activities of the WHO Team for the List of Essential Medicines.
International Collaborations
Since 2021 the Center collaborates with the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation (MSIF), with the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI) of the McMaster University (Canada) and with the Cochrane Review Group Multiple Sclerosis and rare Diseases of the Central Nervous System for the development of an application aimed at the inclusion of disease modifying drugs for multiple sclerosis, currently not included in the Essential Medicines List.
WHO encourages Collaborating Centers to develop interactions with other WHO-recognised centers and institutions, in particular to create or join collaborative networks with WHO support. Since 2021, the Center has been cooperating with a network of WHO Collaborating Centers dealing with pharmaceutical policies, coordinated by the WHO Collaborating Center for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies (Vienna, Austria), which includes: