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Overcoming Challenges of the Pandemic With APIC · The SHEA Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the We're All in This Together COVID-19 Allies and Infection Prevention podcast series as part of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Shay's Rapid Response Program.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am Joan Hebden.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I currently serve as an independent infection prevention consultant and research coordinator from Baltimore, Maryland, and have served as the director of infection prevention and control for 28 years at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I also am part of the Division of Healthcare Epidemiology and Public Health for the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and I will be serving as your Shea moderator and speaker.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also happy to welcome Connie Steed, 2020 APIC president and director of infection prevention at Prisma Health in South Carolina.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Connie has been a long-term member of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, and we are delighted to have her as our president and the speaker for today's podcast.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to take an opportunity to say that I also have been an active member of APIC, and I have been delighted that we have as an organization served our members very well during this very unprecedented pandemic.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The resources and support that the members have received from APIC has really been awesome.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to take an opportunity to thank both Connie and the entire organization.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to also say thank you to Shay for the wonderful support they've given their members.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of APIC members are members of Shay, the town halls that are done every week, and the support that we have felt from Shay has been outstanding.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Shea and APIC are now working along with IDSA and others on a white paper specific to AGPs and sort of a risk assessment to help us.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we're excited about that as well.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much, Shay.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Discussion on the podcast does not reflect Shay's or APIC's perspective, but facilitates communication of multiple perspectives and experiences as we go through this challenging time together.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode will focus on how infection prevention teams can work together to address the most important questions surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I will welcome Connie and let's get started with our first question.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Connie, can you address for us the role your organization, APIC, is doing as far as addressing COVID-19?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be happy to, and I'm so pleased to be here with you today, Joan, to discuss COVID-19 as it has impacted every single one of us around the world and the infection prevention and control community most specifically because we're the backbone of prevention and risk mitigation efforts around the country.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, what has APIC done?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: One of the first things that we did was form a task force to review and create resources for our members and to guide our work.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: They decided, you know, what kind of programs did the IPs need, what kind of questions were we getting into the APIC office where we needed some education and discussion around.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so webinars covering these key areas of practice were put in place and have been ongoing.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: The task force also did an extremely good job on developing fact sheets for members and the general public.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And these are very simplistic fact sheets that very clearly outline what people need to know about prevention and control.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: One of my favorites is about wearing gloves or not wearing gloves out in the community.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about hand hygiene.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: People shouldn't be wearing gloves in the grocery store.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: That one really hit the nail on the head.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I've used that one individually in my own organization and in the community.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Transition from face-to-face education to virtual conferences has also been a need.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our IPs are missing that networking that they get at the national conferences and the in-person meetings.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we already did virtual conferences, but basically that's what we have left for right now.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so, for example, we're working on an extremely important conference, cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization for October that's a couple of days long that goes over this major focus because we are addressing COVID-19, but infection preventionist needs building on their program continue in this type of basic training, and information sharing is extremely important.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think most recently, and I think vital to the infection preventionists, is we've afforded resources to help our members cope with the emotional aspects of this never-ending pandemic.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's really heartbreaking to hear some of the stories I've heard from IPs about how they're by themselves, they feel alone, and they may be addressed with anger, if you will, from staff because you know CDC changes guidelines frequently, and so we have to change with them.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like those changes are ever ongoing and it affects those people.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we sometimes get the brunt of that frustration from our frontline workers.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: We did partner with Mount Sinai for stress resilience and personal growth to do a resilience presentation for the membership free of charge.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was a virtual program, and I think we had over 700, 800 people that were on that webinar, which shows you the need that was there.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: We also are doing and planning an IP recharge and well-being series that's going to occur and begin in September, that I'm really excited about that's going to talk about things that we need to do to take care of ourselves.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're even planning a little session on how to do yoga to help reduce stress and some things about self-care because infection preventionists need to be reminded that as they're doing all this work to maintain and help reduce risk in their healthcare organizations, they also got to take care of themselves.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: We are also going to be celebrating and sharing IP stories on our website.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: We love IPs is an issue that we've done.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so for Infection Prevention Week, that's going to be a celebration of infection preventionists.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's really great to hear that not only have you been providing the resources necessary to keep up with the evolving science around COVID-19 for the infection preventionists, but you've addressed this emotional aspect as it relates to really the exceedingly difficult workplace increase in time that the IPs need to be at work, the challenges they probably have had around the anxiety and stress of the bedside staff.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is really terrific.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: As far as other challenges that you may have encountered for the organization around COVID-19, what would you say has been the largest challenge?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've mentioned obviously the transition to virtual meetings, the inability to hold the national conference in person.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But is there another one that you would want to highlight and how have you addressed that?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the one that I want to really mention and talk about a little bit is our membership was communicating the continued opportunity with personal protective equipment availability.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so APIC conducted a survey for our members in late March.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the day of our press conference, Wolf Blitzer shared our result, and the president announced that he was enacting the Defense Production Act.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we focused a little bit of our time on finding out from our members what the issues were, and then we followed through with that to get some media attention out on it, which along with other professional organizations doing similar focuses in public policy, we feel that it helped promulgate the enacting of the Defense Production Act.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's an example.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can you address how that's been handled in terms of a sharing of knowledge with the bedside practitioners?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a very good question.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that APIC has that's ongoing is we have listservs that where people can go out and ask questions on.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a huge corporate IP director network where they have meetings weekly and they get together and they discuss those opportunities as issues related to contingency plans about PPE.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: In those discussions, where how did you implement universal masking?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Which sounds simple and it's probably one of the most important things that we did, but then we moved on and we implemented universal eyewear protection and had to adjust to that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Doing this N95 conservation because the shortage is high in N95s, even today, it continues to be an issue.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the dialogue and the networking that we've been able to afford amongst the membership and each other as help people share what they're doing and helps us better together sharing those ideas, implement plans throughout the country from those discussions.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think sharing across the board has been extremely vital for the APIC membership.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Connie, thank you for that.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I wondered for a last question to you have there been other disciplines that APIC has engaged with in terms of trying to collaborate to handle the pandemic, and how do you see those long-term relationships continuing and being sustained?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think one of the things that we try to do is have some contact with supply chain, not at a very high level, but we have a stakeholders type of group, strategic partners that we have done some communications with to help get an understanding out there about the dire need of supply chain need.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's important.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: We also have collaborated with other groups to assist with vulnerable healthcare environments like long-term care.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a lot of our infection preventionists, consultants, much like you, and IPs that are working in hospitals.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the IPs in my particular organization has gone out to the community nursing homes to work with them to assess their programs and to help facilitate improvements.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we've also shared resources when we needed to so they could get through and established a more robust infection prevention program.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that those things are probably key.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've also offered texts at some of our materials free to help these external community sources get information about infection prevention at no charge so that people that need the information can get to it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Connie, that is one of the things the organization has done that I have really applauded, and that is making your resources within the core curriculum available to long-term care.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think we know that they, first of all, we're struggling around some of the mandated regulations for infection prevention that CMS had put into play a few years ago, and we still need to be attentive to the fact that they are not going to have the same kind of knowledge that we have in the acute care setting around infection prevention, and that as a community we need to help each other.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's wonderful.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the time that you've given us today, Connie, and sharing your perspectives and experiences.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: A sincere thank you from Shay to all healthcare personnel for all that you are doing to respond to COVID-19.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast can be accessed on Shay's Online Education Center, Learning CE, under the Rapid Response Program.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: You will also find additional resources such as the recorded webinars, Shay COVID-19 town halls, and the additional podcast series, COVID-19 update, what we know now, which is released every Thursday.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: This concludes the episode of Allies and Infection Prevention Podcast Series with Connie Seed, the president of APIC.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.