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SHEA Year in Review with Dr. David Weber · The SHEA Podcast

• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I assess medical officers.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: If we consider the opportunity to learn from the state expertise instead of guidance, which is having exactly the right time for today given the time that we're working in.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to strengthen the organization, inspire the community, and position all of us to continue advancing the field of infection prevention.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the today's podcast, Dr.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Weber.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'd like to end here how we started with some thoughts shared from you to the membership.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So our first question: looking back on your year today, President, what accomplishment are you most proud of and why?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say first responding to many of the federal actions that have impacted public health.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would list uh aiding Shay's response to reductions in CDC personnel and funding, reductions to HRQ funding of personnel, elimination of HICPAC, and the reformatting of ACIP with the elimination of Shays layer some.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Very important for us to respond to those to support public health and support our membership.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Second, developing memorandums of understanding with the Asian Pacific Infection Control Society and Clean Hospitals, plus working on future MOUs with the Hellenistic Society of Greece and other professional organizations.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, in these times of attacks on public health, very important to reach out to similar organizations across the world.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, of course, supporting Shay's guidelines and journals, which are of great utility to our members, and our great journals, Itchy and Ashy.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know this is a bit of a loaded question, but what was the biggest unexpected challenge you encountered during your presidency this year?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: I would say challenges in working with the new leadership at CDC.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, at the time that we're doing this recording, we still don't have a permanent CDC director.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we have both a CDC director and a Secretary of Health and Human Services who lack a background in both medicine or public health.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we clearly, as Shay, want to continue to be involved with both CDC and HHS, but this has been made difficult by the current leadership.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: In your view, how has the field of infection prevention evolved this year?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And how has that impacted Shay?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think there are a number of positive things in terms of the field of infection prevention that will help us reduce healthcare associated infections.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: First, the continued expansion of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which may help us with things like diagnostic stewardship and surveillance, healthcare-associated infections, increasing use of wastewater analysis, for instance, for tracking measles and Mpox, increasing use of whole genome sequencing to early detect outbreaks with reducing cost and ease of use.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I think all of the new guidelines of SHAY, the integration of implementation sciences in infection prevention and control is very important as well.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, of course, the white paper done regarding the DIAD leadership and the best way to organize an infection prevention department led by both SHA and APIC, I think is a very important document.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: As Shay President, you oversaw our policy and advocacy efforts this year.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts on how this response has gone over what has been a very interesting year?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it certainly has been an interesting year.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: We've certainly had some small successes, such as Infect Control Hospital Epidemiology's publication of the CDC paper that provided heat maps on infectiousness for influenza and COVID that will help people decide on isolation guidelines, as well as the paper that was published, the CDC guideline on HIV post-exposure prophylaxis.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think both of those are small wins for us since they weren't being published either posted on the CDC webpage or coming out in the MMWR.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So those were certainly wins for us.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, despite often excellent conversations with senators and House members, I am disappointed in the ability for Shay and our membership to actually impact the current administration.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely been a challenging year.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking of that, if you go back to the start of this year and give yourself one piece of advice, what would that advice be?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think given what's happening in public health and federal support for public health and research, we need to set realistic expectations about what we can accomplish as individuals and we can accomplish as an organization, both in supporting our members and our staff to improve the health of the public.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: That said and done, I strongly uh am very proud of all the efforts Shay has made to protect both research and uh funding for public health across the country.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm also, we need to uh continue to encourage younger members, uh, tend to the field of uh infection prevention, hospital epidemiology, and public health, and we need to continue to rely on the wonderful expertise of uh our current members.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am always impressed with the fact that approximately 10% of all SHA members serve on SHA committees.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: These committees are critical to serving our membership, producing things such as guidelines, public health recommendations, and having a direct impact on both public health and safe health care for all.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really great that we have such an engaged membership.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the exciting things I think about today.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Looking ahead, what do you foresee as the most significant challenges or opportunities facing today and really the broader infection prevention community in the coming year?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think is today's positioning in order to best respond to those challenges and opportunities?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, of course, one of the first challenges was the dramatic reduction and slowing of research in uh both public health and infection prevention, uh, as led by or shown by the reductions in staff and funding at AHRQ.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the CDC has had substantial reductions in funding and staff as well.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: In the immediate future, I see reductions in Medicaid and other funding will have a dramatic impact on hospitals and clinics, and potentially will have an impact on both the infection prevention staffs at these hospitals and support services like environmental support services, all of which may make it more difficult to continue SHAIS goal of improving patient safety.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So SHAI should continue to advocate for funding in staff to ensure safe health care for all, as well as the important research to reduce healthcare associated infections.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's important given the elimination of HICPAC as an advisor uh SHAIS role and the others' advisors in HICPAC, although CDC will continue to make guidelines, but SHA needs to, as along with our other organizations, professional partners, continue to produce excellent uh evidence-based guidelines, all with sections in implementation.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in an effort, uh, we need to continue working with our public health partners to mitigate reductions of public health prepares, such as cooperating to produce vaccine recommendations and improve the ability of hospitals and the U.S.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: to respond to pandemics.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, we should continue to support and mentor junior colleagues and trainees, plus provide up-to-date education for our members.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've worked on a lot of SHA guidance.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: What has been your favorite to work on?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's sort of a difficult question.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, one of my major interests, I'm very proud of our recent uh guideline on sterilization disinfection, high-level disinfection.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this replaced an older CDC guideline from 2008.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, SHA is now working on a new guideline on low-level disinfection, surface disinfection.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Very proud of those.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think our compendium is amazing, and we're already at work, as you know, on developing the next version of our compendium.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think it includes all the basic issues that are important to reduce healthcare associate infections.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's wonderful.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very proud of the new guidelines that are being published in Ashing coming out of our group and antibiotic stewardship, uh, such as diagnostic stewardship.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, a very important uh area uh for SHA.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the ones I would point out the most.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I again I want to emphasize the importance of including implementation science in all our guidelines.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's not enough just to recommend we should do X, but we need to help people implement those changes.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as far as I know, SHAY was the first organization to actually require an implementation section for all of our guidelines.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, you have been a strong mentor to not only people at your own institution, but many leaders within SHAY and volunteers through the years.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So my question is, what is a piece of advice you would give as somebody who's just thinking about going into infection prevention as a career choice?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think mentoring, first of all, I would say is my uh favorite uh activity.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh you have to look at the long view and the broad view.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a critical time for persons to enter the field of public health uh to achieve, again, our goal of safe health care for all.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's an exciting area to do research.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Shea, clearly, as do our members, believe, in evidence-based guidelines.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we need young investigators producing good science as well as translating that into public policy.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And for our current and younger members, we certainly want them to become involved in SHA in our committees, serving on our editorial boards of our journals, publishing in our excellent journals.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I think as all of our younger colleagues advance, they should become mentoring because it gives you a multiplier effect.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you mentor 10 people and they each mentor 10 people themselves, pretty soon we have a hundred or a thousand people out there improving public health, providing excellent patient care, and advancing uh the science of reducing healthcare-associated infections.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing I would add is, you know, if what you do isn't fun, it probably isn't worth doing.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think uh working in this area of public health is enormously fulfilling, it's exciting, it's certainly an area that's rapidly advancing.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for all of those reasons, it's really something that young people should become interested in.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And very, I think, empowering to people who are looking at this as a field.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: One more question.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your time as official Shea president is coming to a close, but I know you have plans in the future.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things you're most excited to work on sort of next as you transition to past president and still involved in the organization?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have a number of things.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly uh uh will support our incoming uh president, and I think uh that's one of the wonderful things about Shay is that we have such exciting and excellent people on our board and just upcoming wonderful members who will be in the line for uh for president.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly want to support them.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: For my own personal issue, I want to continue working with Shay to develop uh memorandums of understanding with professional groups, infections that are devoted to public health and infection prevention around the world in this time of decreased funding in the U.S.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: for public health, cutbacks and funding for the World Health Organization.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, clearly, the slack in developing new guidelines and uh improving public health will fall on professional organizations.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I certainly want to continue uh working in that.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as I've already said, mentoring is my uh favorite activity.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope to continue mentoring uh trainees and uh younger members uh in our profession.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I've mentioned the importance of evidence-based science, and I do continue to uh plan to uh conduct research to help improve uh the both the efficiency and the effectiveness of our interventions in preventing healthcare associated infections.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great answer.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much, Dr.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Weber, for sharing your perspectives and experience on another podcast.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's always a pleasure to chat with you and learn from your experience.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a really great year to work with you.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've enjoyed it very much, uh, and I've got to learn a lot.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the only thing I would add is we uh for our listeners, we have a small but wonderful group of staff at Shay.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said this before, and I'll say it again.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Never have so few done so much.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to thank you, uh, Ms.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wine Shell, for everything you do for Shay and for the wonderful staff you supervise.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're always excited to work with you and so many of our amazing volunteers.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That concludes this episode of the Shea podcast.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.