Andrew Stewardson
Biography:
Andrew is an Infectious Diseases Physician clinician-researcher, with joint appointment at Monash University and Bayside Health (Alfred Care Group) as Associate Professor and Director, Infection Prevention and Healthcare Epidemiology. He is co-lead for ‘Transmission and Control of AMR in Healthcare’ at the Monash University Centre to Impact AMR. His research focuses on the impact, transmission, and control of healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance in both high-income and resource-limited settings. Andrew’s past roles include National Project Manager at Hand Hygiene Australia (2014-2017), Chair of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Healthcare Infection Control Special Interest Group (2017-2022) and Editor-in-Chief of Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (2023-2026).
Abstract:
The twin threats of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) place an enormous burden on the health- and aged-care systems in our region and globally. According to WHO, infection prevention is a ‘best buy’ approach to tackle these patient safety threats. But long-standing underinvestment in infection prevention research means that the evidence available to inform HAI and AMR prevention guidelines is of low certainty. In other clinical domains, clinical trials networks have been highly successful in generating evidence to influence clinical guidelines and change practice. What if we worked together to establish a multidisciplinary infection prevention clinical trial network? Such a network could bring together clinicians, researchers, consumers, and policy makers to perform multicentre clinical trials that answer key infection prevention questions, and to advocate for rapid translation of this evidence to policy and practice, to keep hospital patients, aged-care residents, and healthcare workers safe from preventable HAIs.