Infection Control - I don’t want to brag, but I’ve been washing my hands since it became trendy

Why does Infection Control matter? (perhaps this is a moot point in today’s situation?) How does this impact on the paramedic profession and what are the challenges to implementing this across that industry?

Biography:

Kate Hipsley is a Registered Nurse with experience in paediatrics, ICU, short stay surgery and responsibility for hospital based infection control programs. She has worked at NSW Ambulance since December 2002 and implemented infection control and staff vaccination and screening programs there. Kate has provided mentoring to other state ambulance service infection control programs including via the CAA Masterclass at the 2019 conference. Kate has been able to improve ambulance planning and responses to several serious infection events over that time ie SARS, avian influenza, 2009 swine influenza pandemic, MERS and Ebola.

Tanya Somani is a registered operational paramedic with 12 years experience with NSW Ambulance, having worked in both regional and metropolitan areas state-wide. Tanya has attained a Bachelor of Paramedical Science and a Graduate Certificate in Clinical Redesign, focusing on environmental cleaning in the out of hospital setting. Tanya is also a professional member of the Paramedicine Council and is a gold standard HH auditor.