Dr Su-yin Hor1, Dr Penelope Burns2, Dr Faith Yong3, Dr Ruth Barratt4, Associate Professor Chris Degeling5, Dr Leah Williams Veazey4, Dr Mary Wyer4, Professor Lyn Gilbert4
1University Of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia
2Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
3The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia
4The University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia
5University of Wollongong, Woollongong, Australia
Introduction: General practices have been at the frontline of the primary health response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Australia. Like the rest of the health system, they have had to rapidly adapt and implement a range of novel infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies. We conducted an interview study to explore not only what kinds of strategies were adopted in general practice, but also how they were adapted to diverse practice settings, and what factors facilitated and challenged their implementation.
Methods: Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with general practice personnel working in New South Wales, Australia, including general practitioners (GPs), nurses, practice managers and receptionists, between November 2020 and August 2021.
Results: Participants described implementing a wide-range of strategies across the hierarchy of controls to manage the demands of pandemic IPC. Strategies were creatively adapted (and reinvented) with resourcefulness and agility by participants, in ways that were sensitive to the varied contexts of general practice, and the needs and preferences of individual GPs; as well as responsive to local, State and national requirements, which changed frequently as the pandemic evolved.
Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate how the hierarchy of controls can be applied and extended to guide pandemic IPC in general practice. We show how different controls (particularly engineering and administrative) often functioned in concert within practices; as well as externally. This invites us to consider not only how strategies might be ranked for reliability, but also how healthcare professionals can combine them for greater efficacy.
Biography: Suyin Hor is a Lecturer in Health Services Management at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is a social scientist with a research background in psychology, education, and sociology, specialising in patient safety and collaborative learning in acute care settings. She has developed and led a wide range of research to understand and improve patient safety, using a complexity lens. Her current research uses participatory video-reflexive methods with healthcare staff and patients to improve infection prevention and control practices at the frontline of clinical care.