A/Prof. Noleen Bennett1,2
1Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System (VICNISS) Coordinating Centre, 2National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship (NCAS)
Biography:
Noleen Bennett is a senior Infection Prevention and Control consultant, employed at both the Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System (VICNISS) Coordinating Centre and National Centre for Antimicrobial Stewardship (NCAS). She oversees multiple aged care surveillance initiatives:
1. VICNISS Aged Care Infection Indicator Program; 170 public residential aged care homes (RACHs) continuously participate,
2. Aged Care National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey: 823 RACHs participated in 2023,
3. National infection Surveillance Program for Aged Care (NISPAC) project: 64 RACHs participated in the pilot, and
4. Safe At Home research project. These surveillance programs include a suite of modules that monitor infections and antimicrobial use.
Abstract:
The National Infection Surveillance Program for Aged Care (NISPAC) Phase 2 will build upon the success of NISPAC Phase 1. Phase 1 developed and evaluated a pilot NISPAC and established a secure resourceful IT platform for Australian residential aged care homes to report infection and antimicrobial use surveillance data. Ten surveillance modules spanning staff and resident vaccination, significant organism infections, urinary tract infection (UTI) and, via the Aged Care National Antimicrobial Prescribing Survey (NAPS), antimicrobial use were included in the Phase 1 pilot NISPAC.
Priorities for Phase 2 (to be detailed in this presentation) include:
– A major re-build of Aged Care NAPS that will incorporate antimicrobial appropriateness assessments. Clinical vignettes evaluating key prescribing elements and antimicrobial stewardship guideline compliance have been co-designed.
– Likely extension of the staff and resident vaccination modules.
– Development of a laboratory-identified multi-drug resistant organism and Clostridioides difficile infection module.
– Simplification of the UTI module (rated the most difficult but important pilot surveillance module).
– A research project titled ‘Safe-At-Home’ that will explore the development of an infection and antimicrobial use surveillance program specifically for use in Australian in-home aged care services. How IPC consultants-leads can be involved will be outlined.