Ms. Catina Eyres1, Ms. Keira Doan1, Ms. Melodie Heland1
1Dhelkaya Health, Castlemaine, Australia
Biography:
Catina is currently employed as an infection prevention control (IPC) consultant across Dhelkaya Health, encompassing areas of aged care, acute, subacute, community and justice.
She has clinical experience in medical, emergency, intensive care and infection control nursing, prior to being the founding nurse consultant for a regional infectious diseases service.
Her experience working in state government and with regional public health, alongside working as a clinical nurse, manager, director and as a statewide and university educator, have been invaluable for identifying, mitigating and communicating risk. Catina’s major achievement was reading 150 books for pleasure whilst studying during the pandemic.
Abstract:
Background
As for many organisations, the COVID-19 pandemic made a significant impact on Dhelkaya Health’s staff immunisation program due to staff attrition, financial impacts, and reprioritisation of service delivery. Subsequently, aside from influenza and COVID-19, vaccination and serological status for healthcare workers lagged. With an increasing number of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks in Victoria and a focus on staff and client safety, reinvigorating the service was imperative. Approval from Dhelkaya Health and University of New South Wales was obtained to complete this work as part of the author’s Master of Infectious Diseases Intelligence.
Method
Working within clinical governance approval systems, and aligning with national and state guidance, the program was reinvigorated with:
1. Revision and consolidation of several documents to create a single staff immunisation procedure
2. Redevelopment of documentation for ease of use
3. Revision of data collation and storage for future display and benchmarking and
4. Provision of information about vaccine preventable diseases for staff knowledge.
Results
In a setting with multiple stakeholders and agendas, it can be challenging to negotiate the authorising environment. The infection prevention control consultants (IPC) utilised the clinical governance system and input from a senior manager, to negotiate organisational politics, thereby reducing stress and leading to favourable program implementation in early 2024.
Conclusion
Three key learnings emerged; the transformative role of effective communication in influencing and negotiating across departments and disciplines; the influential role skilled leadership can have to ensure ongoing collaboration; and the powerful role data can play in communicating possible risk.