Mrs. Sue Flockhart1, Mrs. Karlee Podgorska1
1Grampians Health, Ballarat, Australia
Biography:
Sue Flockhart is the Director of Infection Prevention and Control, Grampians Health. Sue is a senior registered nurse with a passion for infection prevention and control and patient safety. As the Infection Prevention and Control Director, she manages a team of consultants across five health services in the Grampians region of Victoria to deliver the infection prevention and control program. This includes 5 rural hospitals and 15 large, aged care facilities. Sue has completed a master’s degree in nursing and a range of other IPC qualifications. She is passionate about infection prevention and extending her knowledge and experience to others.
Abstract:
Introduction
The COVID pandemic certainly put Infection Control consultants in the spotlight. It was during this time that recruiting to any vacant positions in infection control proved extremely difficult due to the high demand of infection control expertise across all domains. To create capacity within the infection control (IC) unit a novice role was created to bridge the gap. This concept was embraced as an opportunity for not only mentoring but succession planning.
Background
A Novice is defined as an infection control consultant who has very limited knowledge, skills, experience, and basis in which to have situational awareness in infection prevention and control (IPC) and epidemiology. The Novice must rely on guidelines, concepts, and experienced consultants to guide their practice and begin to develop their knowledge/skills in the core competencies.
There were no mentoring or clear development pathway studies that could be found relating to infection control. A program was developed based on the Association for Professionals in Infection Control epidemiology (APIC) competency model for professional development in IC (modified version). This provided the narrative of the models use and the growth of the structured professional development and mentoring model to facilitate novice infection prevention and control professionals to become experts.
Conclusion
The development and implementation of the novice to expert program has proved very successful. The infection control unit has recently recruited its second novice and the novice model has also been introduced into other campus sites of the health service with success.