Miss Amy Blake1
1Monash Health, Australia
Biography:
Amy is an Infection Prevention Clinical Nurse Consultant at Monash Health in Melbourne holding postgraduate qualifications in infection prevention and three years experience in acute healthcare IP. Her work focuses on surveillance, outbreak management, and implementing evidence-based strategies to improve patient safety and healthcare-associated infection outcomes across healthcare settings.
Abstract:
Increasing measles incidence, driven by overseas-acquired infections and declining community vaccination rates, has placed mounting pressure on infection prevention (IP) teams in acute care settings. Within a large Australian tertiary health service, delayed identification and isolation of suspected cases, often presenting via emergency departments with prolonged wait times, has led to large, complex contact traces. These challenges are further compounded by largely manual processes, incomplete staff immunisation records, and limited timeframes for delivering post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
Rising demand, without a corresponding increase in resources or workforce capacity, required the introduction of system-level and process-focused strategies to improve efficiency and coordination. These include implementation of incident management team meetings to strengthen governance and support timely decision making, utilising templated SMS’s to notify exposed individuals at scale, developing auto-calculating spreadsheets to quickly identify exposure criteria and PEP windows and shifting accountability for incomplete employee immunisation records to managers and organisational leadership, alleviating burden on IP teams and reducing manual workload
Collectively, these approaches improved timeliness and consistency of contact tracing, reduced administrative burden, and enabled IP clinicians to better utilise their expertise, whilst promoting greater organisational ownership of IP activities. Despite this, ongoing challenges persist, including timely access to PEP outside standard care settings and managing delays in case recognition and notification.
This experience highlights the need for scalable, system-level approaches to IP service delivery. Key lessons include the importance of leveraging digital solutions, strengthening organisational ownership of workforce immunisation, and establishing clear governance structures to respond to increasing communicable disease demands.