HREC yourself before you wreck yourself – overcoming the barriers of ethics and governance so you can do more research in your clinical role

Dr. Sally Havers¹

¹Infection Data Connectivity, Herston Infectious Diseases Institute (HeIDI)

Biography:

Sally  is a committed Infection Control Professional of fifteen years, with a passion for improving and ensuring safe patient care. She has extensive experience and post-graduate qualifications in healthcare management and policy implementation, and an in-depth understanding of the current challenges and opportunities ahead of IPC practice. Dr Havers has experience managing large, multisite infection prevention and control services and extensive project management experience in the development and rollout of a large national infection prevention program. She has also coordinated multidisciplinary research and project teams, with an active commitment to Infection Control and Infectious Diseases research, both nationally and internationally. Dr Havers is a Fellow of the College and has been credentialed at Expert Level with the Australasian College of Infection Prevention and Control.

Abstract:

Ethically sound research governance is essential in advancing high-quality, patient-centred infection prevention and control research. Yet the complexity of approval processes and governance frameworks can seem daunting and hinder our desire to do research in our day-to-day practice. This presentation will aim to outline the key guiding principles and practical strategies to understand and streamline ethics and governance approval processes without compromising rigour or participant safety. Drawing on the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2023) and the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018), we will highlight some of the differing levels of review, how to engage early in governance processes, and how research groups working with ACIPC might be able to support clinical research at the coal face. By reframing ethics and governance as enablers rather than barriers, this session will hopefully reassure with some actionable approaches to support more research that delivers measurable impact in IPC.