Infection Control Matters

Urinary catheter awareness - an ACIPC Conference special with Dr Gillian Ray-Barruel

In this special ACIPC conference episode, Brett Mitchell and Martin Kiernan talk to Dr Gillian-Ray-Barruel, from Griffith University School of Nursing and Midwifery and QEII Jubilee Hospital, Brisbane.
Gillian is presenting at the 2021 virtual ACIPC Conference on urinary catheter awareness. Gillian has an long standing interest in medical device placement, and this paper focuses on patient and staff awareness of the need for the catheter. Naturally we digress into other areas such as consent and nurse advocacy!
Papers that we refer to in this session:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11042237/

Staph. capitis in NICU - Global problem or just another CoNS trick? - with Dr Alicia Demirjian

In this podcast, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Alicia Demirjian about the issue of seemingly increasing reports of Staphylococcus capitis cases in neonates. Alicia is Consultant Epidemiologist at the Evelina Children's hospital in London and leads the antimicrobial resistance and prescribing team at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) - formerly Public Health England. Alicia has been working on this issue for a while now and we discuss the problem (and if there is one), findings to date and possible interventions. Some of the papers that we discuss are here, as is a link to the video on how to clean an incubator, a complex piece of equipment that is often still contaminated after cleaning and disinfection.
Cleaning video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELF-0MTFJfE
 
Papers:
Wirth, T., M. Bergot, et al (2020) Niche specialization and spread of Staphylococcus capitis involved in neonatal sepsis. Nat Microbiol, 5, 735-745. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32341568
Thorn, L. M., et al (2020) Risk factors for Staphylococcus capitis pulsotype NRCS-A colonisation among premature neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit of a tertiary-care hospital: a retrospective case-control study. Infect Prev Pract, 2, 100057. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34368703Decalonne, M., et al. (2020) Staphylococcus capitis isolated from bloodstream infections: a nationwide 3-month survey in 38 neonatal intensive care units. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis, 39, 2185-2194. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32519215
Ory, J., et al (2019) Successful implementation of infection control measure in a neonatal intensive care unit to combat the spread of pathogenic multidrug resistant Staphylococcus capitis. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control, 8, 57. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30962919
Laurent, F. & M. Butin (2019) Staphylococcus capitis and NRCS-A clone: the story of an unrecognized pathogen in neonatal intensive care units. Clin Microbiol Infect, 25, 1081-1085. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30928561
Butin, M., et al (2019) Sources and reservoirs of Staphylococcus capitis NRCS-A inside a NICU. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control, 8, 157. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31636900
Butin, M., et al (2017) Worldwide Endemicity of a Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus capitis Clone Involved in Neonatal Sepsis. Emerg Infect Dis, 23, 538-539. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28221122 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5382751/pdf/16-0833.pdf
Butin, M., et al (2016) Wide geographical dissemination of the multiresistant Staphylococcus capitis NRCS-A clone in neonatal intensive-care units. Clin Microbiol Infect, 22, 46-52. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26404028 https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(15)00850-2/pdf
 

Fundamental and missed care impacts on healthcare-associated infection with Prof Heather Loveday

In this episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Prof Heather Loveday, Director of the Richard Wells Research Centre at the University of West London about an lecture recently given at the 2021 IPS Conference. The topic discussed centres on the role that fundamental care has in the prevention of healthcare-associated infections and the impact of 'missed' care.
Papers for futher reading on these topics are listed below.
Journal of Clinical Nursing special issue on fundamental care: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/13652702/2018/27/11-12
Richards, DA, Hilli, A, Pentecost, C, Goodwin, VA, Frost, J. Fundamental nursing care: A systematic review of the evidence on the effect of nursing care interventions for nutrition, elimination, mobility and hygiene. J Clin Nurs. 2018; 27: 2179– 2188. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14150
 
Vollman KM. Interventional patient hygiene: discussion of the issues and a proposed model for implementation of the nursing care basics. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2013 Oct;29(5):250-5. doi: 10.1016/j.iccn.2013.04.004. Epub 2013 Jun 6. PMID: 23746440. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0964339713000414?via%3Dihub
 
Interventional patient hygiene model: Infection control and nursing share responsibility for patient safety
Maryanne McGuckin, Dr. ScEd, MT(ASCP), Arlene Shubin, Marianne Hujcs, RN, MSN
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2007.01.010
 
Recio-Saucedo A, Dall'Ora C, Maruotti A, Ball J, Briggs J, Meredith P, Redfern OC, Kovacs C, Prytherch D, Smith GB, Griffiths P. What impact does nursing care left undone have on patient outcomes? Review of the literature. J Clin Nurs. 2018 Jun;27(11-12):2248-2259. doi: 10.1111/jocn.14058. Epub 2017 Oct 16. PMID: 28859254; PMCID: PMC6001747. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jocn.14058

Monoclonal antibodies and future IPC priorities - a chat with Jon Otter

In this week's episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Jon Otter of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust in the UK about a couple of Jon's recent blog postings on the popular "Reflections" blog (https://reflectionsipc.com/). We first discuss a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that reported on a study that examined the use of monoclonal antibodies in preventing infection in unvaccinated household contacts of COVID that can be found here https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109682.
Then we go on to discuss Jon's recent presentation on future priorities for iPC in healthcare, the slides for which are available here (https://jonotter.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/211014-the-future-of-healthcare-and-ipc.pptx).

Transmission of Norovirus to other room occupants with Dr Carl-Johan Frankel

In this episode, Prof Brett Mitchell talks to Dr Carl-Johan Frankel from the Department of Infection Control, Lund University, Sweden about his recent paper examining the risk of transmission of Norovirus to roomates. Does norovirus transmit readily to other occupants? The findings may well surprise you! The paper is here: https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(21)00313-3/fulltext
 
Other papers referred to:
Risk of transmission to subsequent room occupants: https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(15)00312-6/fulltext
Prolonged environmental survival of small round structured viruses: https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(97)90230-9/pdf
 
 

Surgical Site Infection Surveillance - Who cares? With Dr Jon Otter at the IPS Conference

In another special edition from the 2021 IPS conference in Liverpool UK, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Jon Otter, who presented a paper on improving and broadening surgical site infection surveillance. But to whom does it matter and how can IPC Teams achieve engagement with other clinical specialities and managers of healthcare providers?
Shockingly in this episode Jon admits to finding a qualitative study of interest - Tanner J, Padley W, Davey S, Murphy K, Brown B Patients’ experiences of surgical site infection. Journal of Infection Prevention 2012; 13: 164-8.(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1757177412452677)
Another paper discussed is a further study by Prof Judith Tanner, in which bundle adherence is low, however is data feedback getting to the right place?
Tanner J, Kiernan M, Hilliam R et al. Effectiveness of a care bundle to reduce surgical site infections in patients having open colorectal surgery. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2016; 98: 270-4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5226025/pdf/rcsann.2016.0072.pdf

Are guidelines letting us down? With Evonne Curran and Brett Mitchell from the IPS Conference 2021

In this episode from the IPS conference, Prof Brett Mitchell is joined by Dr Evonne Curran who has worked in the field of infection prevention and control for a number of years, was a Nurse Consultant with Health Protection Scotland and is now an independent consultant. Together they discuss the relevance of guidelines to clinical practice and whether the development process is really producing guidance that is useful in the field of nfection prevention. In this podcast these papers are referred to:
Smith GC, Pell JP Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ 2003; 327: 1459-61. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/pdf/32701459.pdf
Yeh RW, Valsdottir LR, Yeh MW et al. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial. BMJ 2018; 363: k5094. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/30545967/
Greenhalgh T Will COVID-19 be evidence-based medicine's nemesis? PLoS Med 2020; 17: e1003266. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7326185/pdf/pmed.1003266.pdf

Year in Infection Control - papers selected by Prof Andreas Voss at ICPIC 2021

In this final episode at ICPIC 2021 (Geneva), Martin Kiernan talks to Professor Andreas Voss  from the Radboud University Medical Centre (Radboudumc) and Canisus-Wilhelmina Ziekenhuis in the Netherlands. Andreas is always a sought after speaker for his engaging style whilst getting to the heart of the matter. To get the most from this podcast, you might need to look at the papers we mention below.
Endoscopes
Benowitz I, Moulton-Meissner HA, Epstein L, Arduino MJ. Gastrointestinal Flexible Endoscopes: Infection Control Risks, Lessons Learned from Outbreaks, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guidance. Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Clinics of North America. 2020;30(4):723-33 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1052515720300702?via%3Dihub
Sinks
De Geyter D, Blommaert L, Verbraeken N, Sevenois M, Huyghens L, Martini H, et al. The sink as a potential source of transmission of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in the intensive care unit. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2017;6:24. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34111433
Decreased other infections (STD and Norovirus)
Nelson B. The positive effects of covid-19. BMJ. 2020;369:m1785. http://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1785.abstract
Bruggink LD, Garcia-Clapes A, Tran T, Druce JD, Thorley BR. Decreased incidence of enterovirus and norovirus infections during the COVID-19 pandemic, Victoria, Australia, 2020. Commun Dis Intell (2018). 2021 Jan 29;45. doi: 10.33321/cdi.2021.45.5. PMID: 33573536.
Impact on ocular health
Bahkir, Fayiqa Ahamed; Grandee, Srinivasan Subramanian Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on digital device-related ocular health, Indian Journal of Ophthalmology: November 2020 - Volume 68 - Issue 11 - p 2378-2383 doi: 10.4103/ijo.IJO_2306_20
Dog-assisted therapy
Edner A, Lindstrom-Nilsson M, Melhus A. Low risk of transmission of pathogenic bacteria between children and the assistance dog during animal-assisted therapy if strict rules are followed. J Hosp Infect. 2021;115:5-9.
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(21)00178-X/fulltext
Lace up masks
Wang X, Lin F, Wang Z, Hu J, Li X, Zhu B, et al. The defects of lace-up surgical masks and related solutions in operating rooms. J Hosp Infect. 2021;115:64-70. https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(21)00237-1/fulltext#relatedArticles
Migrane and mask wearing
Bharatendu C, Ong JJY, Goh Y, Tan BYQ, Chan ACY, Tang JZY, et al. Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR) restores the N95 face mask induced cerebral hemodynamic alterations among Healthcare Workers during COVID-19 Outbreak. J Neurol Sci. 2020;417:117078.
https://www.jns-journal.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0022-510X%2820%2930415-9
A nose for pneumonia
Chen, C.-Y., Lin, W.-C. & Yang, H.-Y. Diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia using electronic nose sensor array signals: solutions to improve the application of machine learning in respiratory research. Respir Res 2020;21:45 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12931-020-1285-6
Social media for epidemiologists
Hammer CC, Boender TS, Thomas DR. Social media for field epidemiologists (#SoMe4epi): How to use Twitter during the #COVID19 pandemic. Int J Infect Dis. 2021.
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1201-9712(21)00437-9
Use of Emoji in communication
Lotfinejad, N., Assadi, R., Aelami, M. H. & Pittet, D. Emojis in public health and how they might be used for hand hygiene and infection prevention and control. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control 2020;9:27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-020-0692-2 
On Call IPC Services
Humphreys H. Infection prevention and control advice out-of-hours. J Hosp Infect. 2020;105(4):795-6.
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30262-0/fulltext
Handshake/Fist Bump
Sklansky M, Nadkarni N, Ramirez-Avila L. Banning the handshake from the health care setting. JAMA. 2014;311(24):2477-8.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1873637
Mela S, Whitworth DE. The fist bump: a more hygienic alternative to the handshake. Am J Infect Control. 2014;42(8):916-7.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25087144
 
Elbow or hand
Liu H, Gao L, Sun C. Elbow instead of hand: is it more helpful or harmful? J Public Health (Oxf). 2020.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32529204

Time to clean: Calculating the staffing requirement with An Caluwaerts

In another special edition from ICPIC, Martin talks to An Caluwaerts, IPC Specialist from Kliniek Sint Jan, Brussels. This was a poster presentation that was selected as part of a poster walk and it is a practical piece of work that describes the process of calculating the number of staff (and hours) needed to clean a standard hospital ward. A copy of the poster can be downloaded below.
 
DETERMINING STAFFING LEVELS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANING: TIME MEASUREMENTS IN NON-CRITICAL CARE UNITS IN AN ACUTE CARE HOSPITAL IN BRUSSELS
 
 

From whole genome sequencing to sinks with Dr Amy Mathers

In another episode from the 2021 ICPIC Conference, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Amy Mathers, who moderated and spoke at a session on whole genome sequencing and also the issue of plasmid-mediated outbreaks. World-reknowned for her work on drains and sinks at the University of Virginia (see http://uvasinklab.org/), here are just a couple of the research outputs.
 
Intensive Care Unit Wastewater Interventions to Prevent Transmission of Multispecies Klebsiella pneumoniae Carbapenemase–Producing organisms
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciy052/4834952
 
Spread from the Sink to the Patient: In Situ Study Using Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)-Expressing Escherichia coli To Model Bacterial Dispersion from Hand-Washing Sink-Trap Reservoirs
http://aem.asm.org/content/early/2017/02/13/AEM.03327-16.abstract