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Transcript

SHEA Spring 2021 Recap · The SHEA Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Rabbit Response Podcast brought to you by Society of Healthcare Epidemiology, promoting the prevention of healthcare associated infections and antibiotic resistance and seeking to advance the field of healthcare epidemiology and antibiotic stewardship.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Wali Chavit, hospital epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Downtown, and I'll serve as your moderator.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Discussion on the podcast does not reflect Shay's perspective but facilitates communication of multiple perspectives and experiences as we go through this challenging time together.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: She is excited to launch this episode of the podcast COVID-19 update, What We Know Now.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Today's discussion will take slightly different focus than usual, and we will be having a Shay Spring 2021 recap.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our speakers today are Dr.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tom Sandora, Periodic Infection Disease Physician and Hospital Epidemiologist at Boston Children's Hospital.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sandora served as the chair of the Shafe Conference Planning Committee.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: We also have Dr.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Jennifer Hennerhan, Infection Disease Specialist at University of Toledo.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hanahan served as the vice chair of the Shafe Conference Planning Committee.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you both for joining us today.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let us go ahead and move right into the questions.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: First, congratulations on such a great Shave Spring conference.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was such a fantastic experience to start as chair and vice chair of Shay Conference Planning Committee.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Could you each summarize Shea Spring and share your own personal experience from the event?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, well, thank you so much.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to be at this podcast to talk about the conference.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say I was really thrilled with the conference overall.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: This was the first time that the Shea Spring conference has been fully virtual.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it was rewarding to see it all come together.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we definitely couldn't have done it without all the outstanding speakers and presenters who came to the meeting, as well as the huge efforts from all of the Shea staff who did a ton of work behind the scenes to plan it all and execute it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: The two overarching themes for the conference this year were leadership and equity.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we had several sessions on those topics that were kind of scattered throughout the meeting.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought all of those topics and sessions really went extremely well.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: There were some terrific discussions about issues of how to lead effectively and about how we can support equity and work on anti-racism efforts.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I was really pleased with those themes and how they kind of rank throughout the conference.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Jennifer, what do you think?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I would have to say this was the best conference that I've attended in my career, and obviously I'm a little biased, but I would say that, you know, this was really a much needed outlet, I think, for a lot of people who are doing hospital epidemiology during this extremely difficult year.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was an opportunity to be with people who understand you and you don't have to explain, you know, some of the things that you're thinking about, and you don't have to constantly justify what you're thinking about.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I thought that was invaluable.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The presentations that we had were even better than I anticipated, and I was really excited about the conference beforehand.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I think that people did an outstanding job, and especially all the sessions on leadership and equity were just so powerful.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this was an amazing conference.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was really happy with the way that it went.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well said, both of you guys.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Since this podcast's about COVID-19, can you tell us how this pandemic influenced the year's conference, both from the planning perspective and the programming standpoint?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can start by offering a few thoughts.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing is that usually the planning committee gets together in the early summer for an in-person two-day meeting to plan out the entire conference.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: This year that was altered.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: So the planning meeting was delayed until the fall because of the pandemic, and it had to be done fully virtually for the first time.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I was actually really pleased with how we were still able to put together an effective conference despite having to do it virtually and not kind of being together in the same room to plan it out.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we had to focus more on technology issues.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: We had to choose a platform for an online conference, and we had a lot of testing and tech checks and those types of things to make sure that technologically it would all come off and work well.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of content, I think we knew going in that COVID-19 would have to be part of the focus of the meeting since it was such a major part of our lives for the last year.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: But we also didn't want to spend the whole meeting on COVID-19 since we've been so immersed in that and we've all wanted to get away and be able to think about some of the other aspects of our careers and our field.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we tried to put together a balance of some COVID-19 and then some non-COVID content from the conference.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that, you know, certainly doing the conference virtually made it more challenging because some of the things that we do in person, like networking, definitely become a little bit more challenging to try to, you know, simulate that experience in a virtual forum.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there were some things that actually may work better in a virtual forum than they would work in person.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe more people actually get a chance to speak to people they wouldn't necessarily get to speak to otherwise.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there were, you know, some advantages.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we can certainly take some of those things into future conferences.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think this type of conference certainly taught us some good things.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that, you know, that came out of this that was really important is that people really have the need to be with other people who understand them and who think like them.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there was, you know, definitely a desire for networking experiences.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that, you know, that is something that we'll definitely need to be sure that we continue to have at future conferences.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And again, to try to make it more easily accessible to people who might be more introverted or maybe a little bit shyer about actually approaching people who they would like to network with.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's also very well said.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I actually had very similar experience in the mentor mentor contact that I have had this time around.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot more personal and a lot more direct, even though it was through Zoom, but it was it was very interesting.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you're right.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think the there's the networking possibilities.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that this remote uh or this conferencing platform might help help us achieve in a much better way.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, what sessions would you like to highlight and maybe talk a little in detail as it pertains to COVID-19, Tom?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, there were a bunch, and I didn't get to attend them all yet, so I'm excited to go back and watch some of the other ones on demand.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I will uh mention a few that I thought were really good.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: So our opening plenary was about leadership during a crisis, and Dr.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Tom Frieden, who is one of the former directors of the CDC, gave a great talk about kind of different elements of leadership, like following the science and how to communicate effectively.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then he talked a lot about how some of the lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic can be applied to strengthening our public health system more broadly.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was a really terrific talk.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: We also got to hear from both our past and current SHA presidents about leading through the organization for Shea happened during the pandemic, which I also thought was really interesting.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: The middle plenary we had a discussion about supporting the workforce, given the sort of challenges of the last year for people who are in infection prevention and healthcare epidemiology.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that was done jointly by a physician and an infection preventionist, which I thought was a really effective pairing and allowed us to kind of hear the perspectives of people who had different roles throughout the pandemic and think about what we can do to support each other going forward and kind of build our resilience after the experience of COVID-19.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then one other session that I attended, which I really enjoyed, was a pro-con session about respiratory protection for COVID-19.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Mike Klompus and Dan Dekama had a really great discussion where they presented the evidence and the science around the transmission of the virus and then talked about some of the real life operational issues with wearing masks versus respirators and all of the other elements that go into preventing transmission of COVID-19 in the hospital.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that was really interesting, really well done, and generated a lot of really good discussion in the chat.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: People were kind of going wild, weighing in about the different aspects of some of these questions.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that was one that I really enjoyed.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, wanted to add, you know, Tom, you just mentioned about you know the chat function.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was one of the things that's different about a virtual conference than if you're actually there.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're actually sitting there, you might, you know, not be having conversations about what the speaker is talking about.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: The the chat function allowed people to actually add in questions and generate additional discussion, you know, on a huge number of topics that you might not otherwise think about.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that was actually one of the things that I thought was really interesting about this platform.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I also use the chat function a lot, and it was it was pretty interesting to use.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think the more we get familiar with the with the platform and more you use it.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll learn more in our, I think future conferences probably will be pretty interesting going forward.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, what about the sessions that didn't focus on COVID-19?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: I thought there were a number of highlights.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Probably the biggest one was the closing plenary given by Dr.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Tyson Bell about how to lead anti-racism efforts in healthcare epi and infection prevention.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he sort of talked about some of the parallels between our jobs as hospital epidemiologists and how we might approach thinking about anti-racism and steps that can be taken.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that was a really inspiring and powerful plenary.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: He kind of talked about his personal experiences with him and his family, and I thought we got unanimous feedback that that was really an incredible session and an amazing way to end the conference.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that was definitely a highlight.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: I also really enjoyed a session on being an equity ally.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: There were discussions about kind of the vocabulary for allyship, about the use of race and epidemiology research, and about gender equity and academic medicine, which are all obviously super important topics.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the audience was really engaged during that session.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that one was really terrific.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And from the pediatric side, there was a really good session about pediatric healthcare associated infections and how to prevent them with updates from PICPAC and definitions.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: That one, another one that I thought was really good.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jennifer, any sessions you want to highlight?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think it's really hard to, you know, pick a more powerful session than the closing plenary from, you know, Dr.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bell.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: He did an amazing job.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, one of the things that really was kind of shocking to me.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say afterwards, I thought, why was this shocking to me?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I should be aware of this already.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, one of the things that he shared was with us was what happened when it was announced actually that he was going to be giving this talk.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some of the really negative, hateful messages that he got on Twitter from complete strangers.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really shocking to me because, you know, as someone who hasn't had to experience racism, I realized that these types of experiences are, you know, all of our colleagues are experiencing the world differently.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is up to us to make sure that we are understanding this and paying attention.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we can do a better job to make sure that this goes away.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think that that was clearly an eye-opening moment for me.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It made me think about how do I get the people who don't want to hear about this to pay attention, or the people who are telling me, you know, that they're not racist or that there's no institutional racism, which I'm hearing still, you know, they they think that they don't have to change.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, it has to change.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things, you know, that I came away with was that one of the things we can do is actually invite people who are doing this type of work.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Dr.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Bell and Dr.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jasmine Marslin, who spoke, and we had several more speakers who were excellent.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can invite people to actually have visiting professorships and make this an academic experience and pay them for their work so that they're not being leaned on repeatedly to do the work that you know all of us need to be doing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, it was, you know, it made me think more concretely about what are some of the things that I can do to promote change.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, clearly we have a long way to go.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that was one of the most powerful sessions from the Shea Spring meeting.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would also just like to say that, you know, there were a number of talks about leadership.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Behrman talked about leadership, and Dr.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amanda Lenhart talked about leadership.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was pretty clear to me from the chats that were going on in the chat box that people really need more direct instruction about leadership.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times at conferences, we focus on just the science and we don't talk about, you know, the actual implementation of infection prevention.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: How do you get people to actually listen to you?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: How do you get people to actually buy into the fact that you need more staffing?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you get across your message?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of the sessions that we had this year focused on those issues, and I thought that was extremely valuable.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that was said is that we're not supposed to say, I think, and I thought, and I just said I thought probably 50 times during the cancer.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I have some learning to do.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna start my sentence by saying I think, but I'm reluctant.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think both uh you and uh Tom have pointed out really good points, and the session, as you said, was extremely important for all of us to listen to and understand exactly how the racism is being experienced because that is impacting vaccine hesitancy or vaccine uptake.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's impacting people's uh health care, that's impacting all the work we do in ways that we didn't even realize.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's kind of really an important point, and I really think I really congratulate the Cring Conference committee, both of you guys, who actually have this thought of drinking and getting this platform talk, this important talk that everybody listens to by a person who really was able to communicate what is happening and make us realize how we can do better.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, what were some big aha moments for you during the conferences?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And how will you take those moments, implement them at your own institutions?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, one of the early aha moments was during Dr.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Frieden's talk, where he talked about other epidemics that are going on in the United States at the same time.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he put up a slide, you know, about health disparities in the US for cardiovascular disease and hypertension.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the slide demonstrated that one out of four black people in the United States has hypertension versus one out of seven people in the United States.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a this is a conference about healthcare epidemiology, but you know, there are basic things that that we haven't addressed yet as a country and as a world, and that we can really do a lot more about.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you know, he talked about the need for global funding as well as funding for public health in the United States, and you know, the fact that we really need to focus more on outbreak investigation and that you really need to be able to discover these things very early on, otherwise, you're gonna have big consequences.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that that was incredibly important.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, again, I think the healthcare disparities were something that we really need to be paying more attention to and not just say that yes, we're aware that there are healthcare disparities, but how can we actually tackle these and move forward and not just keep saying that yes, there are health care disparities?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think the disparities issue and also, you know, how we work within our teams and our hospitals to promote anti-racism efforts will definitely take away essays that I hope people will go home and actually put to use when they get back and think about their own jobs and their own teams.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: One other thing I'll highlight that I took away as a smaller but still useful skill was there was a really good pre-conference workshop about how to create and use visual abstracts to help promote our science and how to use Twitter and social media in ways that increase the reach of what we're doing.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I thought that the workshop was extremely practical and useful.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually, after the conference ended, I created my own visual abstract for the first time for one of my studies, and I tweeted about it.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was trying to put my learning into action, and I got some positive comments on Twitter about the visual abstract.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I do think it's important for us to remember that we have a platform to talk about, you know, medicine and public health and infection prevention and the science that we're doing, and so finding ways to share our science and promote it is a really important part of what we do.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope people will go home and try to use some of those skills as well to promote our field.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would just add that the pre-conference workshop was phenomenal.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, it made me revisit my Twitter account, which has been dormant for so long that they actually inactivated it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was phenomenal.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I would definitely recommend that people you know sign up for the conference and go back and look at that pre-conference workshop.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're making me think about my Twitter account or lack thereof.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Lastly, what do you each think are the key takeaways from the conference?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And how would you recommend attendees and or those who plan to watch on-demand sessions use them through the rest of the pandemic and beyond?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I would echo something Jennifer alluded to earlier about leadership.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I completely agree.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think that in our roles in this field, and in many of the roles we have that aren't related to hospital epidemiology, leadership is so important and to have some actual skills like how to negotiate effectively, how to resolve conflicts, how to communicate during a crisis.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: These are skills that apply not only within hospital epi, but you know, in our roles as leaders more generally.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would encourage people who are viewing the sessions on demand to really think about their own leadership skills and styles and try to incorporate some of the learnings into how they interact with people, how they sort of judge the scene and judge people's emotional reaction to challenging situations.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: These are some of the core things to being a really good leader and can make a huge difference in terms of your effectiveness in your own job and also just within our institutions in general.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that would be one takeaway point I would emphasize.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree with Tom.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think the one of the reasons that this was such a great conference was that a lot of the content is is actually not COVID specific, but COVID focused, you know, what some of the areas of need are.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, like Tom said, the need for better communication skills and leadership skills.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think those were really excellent sessions and gave very concrete ideas about things that we can do that can impact the way that we work with other people.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I highly recommend that everyone go back and really look at the entire conference from beginning to end.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that this is really just for hospital epidemiologists or for people in public health.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think this entire conference really could be used for most people in healthcare.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was really well done.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much to our speakers for sharing their perspectives and experiences.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast can be accessed on SHA Online Education Center at Learning CE under the Rapid Response Program.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: You will find other COVID-19 resources such as recorded webinars, healthcare facility outbreak, readiness, and SHA COVID-19 town halls.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: This concludes this episode of Rapid Response Podcast.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for tuning in.