Gethsial Kiruba1,*, Nithya2,

1Senior Executive, Quality and Training, Kauvery Hospitals, India.

2Infection Control Nurse, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, India.

 

Certificate Course on Infection Control 2022

Background

Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) have steadily grown in their dimensions and impact as patients are being admitted with more complicated presentations of injury or illness and, consequently, medical care has grown more complex.

Certificate courses on Infection Control are designed to update all healthcare workers on the recent advances and emerging trends. They are vital to building and strengthening our detection, control and eradication programs as antimicrobial resistance is rising alarmingly and HAIs are increasing the risk to patients and raising the costs of health care.

In Kauvery, a Hybrid course on Infection Prevention and Control has been introduced, which shall run for 6 months, to train the health care workers to develop the necessary expertise to be effective and successful in the field of hospital infection control.

Certificate Course on Infection Control

The Certificate Course on Infection Control was conducted on the date of 1st and 2nd July 2022, with a vision to minimize HCAI through standardizing the Hospital Infection Control (HIC) protocols. This program is a clarion call to sensitize and prepare healthcare professionals for the implementation of hospital infection control practices in their day-to-day work and prevent healthcare-associated infections.

The course is specifically aimed at Nurses and Paramedics, who are at the forefront of fighting diseases and shall be the most decisive warriors who shall clinch victory against Hospital Acquired Infections.

Overview of the program

(1) Course Title: Certificate course on Infection control, with the motto “Prevent Infections, Save Lives”

(2) Proposed course period: July 1st to December 3rd 2022

(3) Duration of course: 6 months

(4) Course and modules: Offline July 1st & 2nd and December 2nd & 3rd.

(5) Mode of instruction: Classroom/Online/Practical training /Site Visit.

(6) Course syllabus: Study material will be sent to the participants’ registered mail IDs weekly.

(7) Online course schedule: Every Thursday from 4 to 5 pm.

(8) Projects: To be ready at the end of the course.

(9) Assessments: Knowledge assessment on 1st day of the course (1.7.2022).

(10) Certification: Course completion Certificate and medal will be given on 3rd December 2022 post the exam.

(11) Evaluation system: Evaluation will be based on assignments, knowledge assessment, exams and completion of project work.

(12) Exam: On 3rd December 2022. The exam will be in OSCE format. A minimum attendance of 80% in online sessions is mandatory to take the exams.

(13) Feedback: Monthly feedback on the online sessions and overall feedback about the course will be obtained at the end of the course.

The course has been started with 30 participants from all units of Kauvery and other large hospitals in the city of Chennai. The faculty shall include seasoned clinicians who are rich in experience and expertise in their respective fields.

The first two days of the course covered the important areas of infection prevention and control such as infection prevention in ICU, Surgical infections, Infection control beyond clinical outcomes, checklist and auditing, microbiology in infection control, antimicrobial stewardship and automation/digital evolution of infection control.

Along with this, the delegates had a site visit to all the important areas of the hospital and learned about infection prevention and control respect to those areas.

Synopsis of the two day’s sessions

Dr K Abirami, Consultant Nephrologist, and Deputy Medical Administrator from Salem unit spoke on “Infection Control Beyond Clinical Outcomes” where she explained it through Case scenarios and the consequences patients faced due to infections in the hospital. She also explained the economic burden of HAI, the costs involved and the impact hospital-acquired infection causes in terms of quality.

Dr N Sekar, Chief Vascular Surgeon took a session on “Surgical infections” by sharing his own practical experience in handling patients with complicated wounds and explained it with images on the best practices to prevent surgical site infections.

Dr Sridhar, Chief Intensivist spoke on “Infections in ICU”. He explained that the human body is home to trillions of microorganisms known as the microbiome and its benefits in our body. Also, he spoke on the bad microorganisms and the importance of infection control in ICU as most ICUs has an admission of immunocompromised patients.

Dr Vijayalakshmi, Consultant, Infectious Diseases conducted an open discussion on Infection control issues like a toilet as dirty utility, theatre hygiene, infections cluster, isolation, high antibiotics for surgical prophylaxis, prolonged antibiotic therapy etc. Also, she took a session on “Antimicrobial stewardship” – Rationale use of antibiotics for the right patient and right time along with Dr Annup, Microbiologist & Group HIC.

Dr Uma Senthil, Microbiology, Neuberg Diagnostics spoke on the importance of the microbiology laboratory in infection control and taught how to interpret culture reports and how to take a proper sample for a microbiology test.

We have a few other interactive sessions on Checklist & Auditing by Dr Kavitha and Automation/Digital evolution in infection control by Ms.Gethsial Kiruba.

Infection control modules

The total number of modules planned for the infection control programme is 22.

(1) Hospital infection control policy

(2) Outbreak management

(3) Infection control processes

(4) Personal protective equipment

(5) Microbiology sampling

(6) Transmission based precautions

(7) Cleaning, sterilization and disinfection

(8) Prevention of healthcare-associated infections

(9) Environmental management practice

(10) Pharmacology

(11) Laundry services

(12) Housekeeping

(13) Dealing with spillage

(14) Biomedical waste management

(15) Central sterile supply department

(16) Occupational health & safety

(17) Sharps injury management

(18) Infection control in immunocompromised patients

(19) Infection prevention in high-risk areas

(20) Dietary and kitchen services

(21) Dialysis

(22) Biostatistics – methodology, benchmarks and validation

certificate-course-on-infection-control-2022-1

Fig.1. Inauguration of the Certificate course on Infection prevention and control.

Conclusion

At the end of the training program, we expect all delegates to upskill themselves with all the current practices related to infection prevention and control. The future impact that we expect that this course will create is to reduce the menace of hospital-acquired infections, decrease associated mortality & morbidity, reduce the treatment costs, reduce associated increased antimicrobial use and consequent resistance and overall improvement in patient care and their outcomes.

 

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