Kate Manserra1
1Infection Prevention & Management Primary and Public Health Central Australia Region
Biography:
Kate Manserra is the Nurse Clinical Coordinator for Infection Prevention and Management with NT Health Primary and Public Health Services in the Central Australia Region. As part of the Quality and Safety team she provides IPC and Staff Health oversight to 19 remote health centres in Central Australia, Prison Health services, and urban community nursing, allied health and aged care, and oral health services in Alice Springs. Kate completed a Masters in Global Public Health at Griffith University in 2020, and a Graduate Certificate in Health Protection at the University of Tasmania in 2023. Her areas of special interest are immunisation, infectious diseases, and wounds.
Abstract:
The Central Australia Region spans over 600,000 km2, covering 40% of the Northern Territory. Many small communities reside outside Alice Springs, separated by long distances, different cultures, and languages. For infection control management (IPC) of primary health services, the sheer size is its own challenge in maintaining regular physical presence, influence, and oversight at 19 remote health centres as well as urban-based and remote outreach primary health services. Staff and health centre manager turnover is often high, and some essential roles such as cleaning remain unfilled. To address these obstacles, a comprehensive IPC audit tool has been developed for each IPC site visit to remote health centres combining multiple audits into one checklist covering environmental hygiene, standard precautions, hand hygiene product availability, hand hygiene essential training compliance, and staff health vaccine preventable disease immunity compliance. As well as being a tool to measure compliance against benchmarks and compare results with other similar sites and previous audits, the tool provides detailed feedback and recommendations to staff on areas for improvement. It can also be used as a checklist for centre managers to self-assess, guide, lift and maintain IPC standards at their sites at any time.