Infection Control Matters

Mouth Care Matters - Oral hygiene & healthcare associated infection

In this episode we return to another ICM favourite topic, healthcare-associated pneumonia that is not device-associated. Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Mark Garvey, Director of Infection Prevention and Helen Woodall, Senior Dental Nurse, both of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust about the 'Mouth Care Matters' initiative. Education of registered nurses and healthcare assistants was a key part of the strategy, which ultimately resulted in a significant reduction in infections.
Note that in England a 'Trust' is an NHS healthcare provider organisation which may be made up of more than one hospital or unit.
The paper outlining the initiative and results can be found here https://www.journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-4453(21)00275-9/fulltext

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) - uses and considerations with Adjunct A/Professor Greg Whiteley

In this podcast, Brett talks to Adjunct A/Professor Greg Whiteley about adenosine triphosphate (ATP). We chat about its use in healthcare as a way to evaluate environmental cleanliness.
 
Greg is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, and is also an adjunct Fellow in the School of Medicine at Western Sydney University. Greg is also the Executive Chairman of Whiteley Corporation, a manufacturer of Therapeutic Goods based in the Hunter Region of New South Wales. His particular expertise is in the measurement of cleanliness, particularly based on rapid ATP testing where he is internationally renowned, published and is a regular keynote conference speaker.

Airborne Transmission - would air filtration reduce a range of infections and why is there reluctance to recognise it? With Matt Butler, Christine Peters and Evonne Curran

In this, the first episode of 2022, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Matt Butler, Consultant Geriatrician (Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK), Dr Christine Peters, Consultant Microbiologist (NHS Greater Glasgow, Scotland) and Dr Evonne Curran, now an independent IPC Consultant. We start off by discussing how Matt came to design a study that looks at the effect of air filtration on a range of infections, including respiratory viruses and more 'common' pathogens like Clostridium difficile. We also discuss why it had taken so long for airborne transmission to be accepted as a mode of transmission. Books recommended by Evonne in the podcast are listed below.
 
Think Again: The power of knowing what you don't know by Adam Grant (https://www.adamgrant.net/book/think-again/) ISBN: 9780753553886
Seeing what others don't by Gary Klein ISBN: 9781857886788
Paper by Andrew Conway-Morris referred to in the podcast:
Andrew Conway Morris, Katherine Sharrocks, Rachel Bousfield, Leanne Kermack, Mailis Maes, Ellen Higginson, Sally Forrest, Joana Pereira-Dias, Claire Cormie, Tim Old, Sophie Brooks, Islam Hamed, Alicia Koenig, Andrew Turner, Paul White, R Andres Floto, Gordon Dougan, Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas, Theodore Gouliouris, Stephen Baker, Vilas Navapurkar, The Removal of Airborne Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Other Microbial Bioaerosols by Air Filtration on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Surge Units, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2021;, ciab933, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciab933

The 2021 Christmas Special!

In this largely unedited Christmas special podcast, Martin, Phil and Brett reflect on podcasts undertaken in 2021 and the year that was. This podcast is a little longer as we "chinwag" about a range of different topics and issues and have a laugh along the way. We hope you enjoy.

25 years of Contact Precautions, but benefit or harm and what is the evidence? With Prof Jennie Wilson

In this week’s episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Professor Jennie Wilson of the Richard Wells Research Centre at the University of West London and current Infection Prevention Society President. We discuss her recent editorial, co-written with Associate Professor Jacqui Prieto from the University of Southampton. After 25 years of contact precautions, first introduced as putative best practice, the evidence to support this intervention has not appeared and there are suggestions that harms may be being caused through poor implementation. Contact precautions add PPE and physical isolation to Standard Precautions, however does this lead to over, and inappropriate use of PPE that is not required?
 
Papers cited during the podcast include:
Wilson J, Prieto J. Re-visiting contact precautions – 25 years on. Journal of Infection Prevention. 2021;22:242-4. Doi: 1177/17571774211059988
Bearman G, Abbas S, Masroor N, Sanogo K, Vanhoozer G, Cooper K, et al. Impact of Discontinuing Contact Precautions for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococcus: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2018;39:676-82. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29580304
 

Ventilation and pathogen transmission with Simon Witts

In this podcast, Phil and Brett talk to Simon Witts on a wide ranging topics related to ventilation and also touch on air scrubbers (purifiers). Simon is Director of Engineering at VA Science, with extensive experience in hospital and building ventilation design. We cover topics such as air changes, what makes a good ventilation system and hotel quarantine.  We also cover practical things like where best to sit on a bus to reduce the risk of infection.
 

Australia‘s Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer - Alison McMillan on leadership and negotiation

In this podcast, Phil and Brett talk to Adjunct Professor Alison McMillan on the topics of leadership and negotiation. Alison is Australia's Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer. We hear first hand experiences related to COVID and tips for building relationships and nursing leadership.
 
Professor (Practice) Alison McMillan PSM was appointed as Australia's Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer in November 2019. In June 2021 Alison was awarded a Public Service Medal for outstanding public service to driving the Government’s national health response priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly to infection prevention measures. 

Wearable proximity devices and contact tracing with Steph Curtis

In the last ACIPC conference special podcast, Brett and Phil talk to Stephanie Curtis about wearable proximity devices for nurses and doctors - and their use for contact tracing. We also talk about other potential uses. Stephanie is an epidemiologist at the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre. She worked on the COVID-19 response in Victoria over 2020-2021 and recently completed Australia's field epidemiology training program, the MAE, based at Alfred Health and Burnet Institute.
 
Stephanie's presented findings from pilot work of proximity trackers at the ACIPC conference. The paper for this study is published in Infection, Disease and Health https://www.idhjournal.com.au/article/S2468-0451(21)00098-5/fulltext 

The science of pathogen transmission via the air with Prof Lidia Morawska - ACIPC conference special

In this third special edition from the 2021 ACIPC Conference, Brett and Martin talk to Distinguished Professor Lidia Morawska about the science of air. Lidia was named in Times magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for helping highlight the airborne spread of COVID-19.  Topics includes in this podcast include the science of aerosolisation from the respiratory tract, activities or source that dictate particle size and terminology around droplet and airbourne transmission.
About Lidia:
Professor Lidia Morawska is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. Lidia is an author of over 950 journal papers, book chapters and conference papers and has also been involved at the executive level with a number of relevant national and international professional bodies and has been acting as an advisor to the WHO.
Significant papers:
1. Zhou L, Yao M, Zhang X, Hu B, Li X, Chen H, et al. Breath-, air- and surface-borne SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals. J Aerosol Sci. 2021;152:105693. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33078030 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7557302/pdf/main.pdf 2. Morawska L, Buonanno G. The physics of particle formation and deposition during breathing. Nat Rev Phys. 2021:1-2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33778373 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7985916/pdf/42254_2021_Article_307.pdf3. Cortellessa G, Stabile L, Arpino F, Faleiros DE, van den Bos W, Morawska L, et al. Close proximity risk assessment for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sci Total Environ. 2021;794:148749.   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8242194/pdf/main.pdf 4. Morawska L, Tang JW, Bahnfleth W, Bluyssen PM, Boerstra A, Buonanno G, et al. How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised? Environ Int. 2020;142:105832. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32521345 5. Stockwell RE, Ballard EL, O'Rourke P, Knibbs LD, Morawska L, Bell SC. Indoor hospital air and the impact of ventilation on bioaerosols: a systematic review. J Hosp Infect. 2019;103:175-84.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31279762
6. Morawska L, Milton DK. It Is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Clin Infect Dis. 2020;71:2311-3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32628269
 

Use of video reflexive ethnography in IPC, clinical care and nurse education - an ACIPC 2021 special with Dr Mary Wyer and Dr Su-Yin Hor

In this second special edition from the 2021 ACIPC Conference, Brett Mitchell and Martin Kiernan talk to Drs Mary Wyer and Su-yin Hor. Mary and Su-Yin's work on Video Reflexive Ethnography (VRE - not that one) is world-reknowned with many publications. In this discussion they outline how the use of  video to examine and develop practice has helped in biopreparedness as well as its uses in other areas of infection prevention and control and nurse education.
Papers referred to in this podcast:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32089464/
Iedema, R., Carroll, K., Collier, A., Hor, S. Y., Mesman, J., & Wyer, M. (2018). Video-reflexive ethnography in health research and healthcare improvement: theory and application. CRC Press.