4 minute read
Infection prevention and control training
BREAKING NEW GROUND
INFECTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL ONLINE LEARNING
The HSE Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control (AMRIC) team launched a new infection prevention and control online education programme in December 2020. From December 2020 to August 2021, the online education modules were accessed 189,011 times by 75,870 individual learners who went on to complete their modules and print their certificates.
This figure was achieved despite the cyber-attack when the programme was inaccessible for a number of weeks. You can read some feedback from two staff members who completed some of the courses and how they changed their practice. The AMRIC team has added three new courses to the eLearning suite. They are available now on HSeLanD, the courses support all health and social care staff in IPC and AMR. Learners are awarded 1 CEU from NMBI and 2 CPD credits from RCPI for each completed course in the AMRIC programme.
The 3 new courses are:
Prevention and Management of Urinary
Tract Infection In this course, you’ll learn how to reduce antibiotic-related harm and reduce the incidence of healthcare associated urinary tract infection, to manage urinary tract infections and reduce antibiotic-related harm.
Surgical Antibiotic Prophylaxis This course supports you to provide every patient who needs surgical antibiotic prophylaxis, the right agent, the right dose, at the right time for the right duration.
Prevention of Peripheral and Central Venous Catheter Related Infections
This course supports you to safely insert, maintain, monitor and remove an indwelling intravascular device in line with infection prevention and control best practice.
The other IPC and AMR courses available on HSeLanD are:
• Introduction to Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial
Resistance • Basics of Infection Prevention and
Control • Standard and Transmission-based
Precautions
Hand Hygiene
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) • Respiratory and Cough Etiquette • Aseptic Technique • Antimicrobial Stewardship
Each course takes between 20 – 40 minutes to complete and includes assessments and extend my learning pieces for staff who want to undertake further learning or who want practical activities to help transfer the learning into their local area of work. You can dip in and out of the courses at any time and can find them by following the AMRIC Resist logo on the HSeLanD homepage, by searching for ‘IPC’ in the search box or by visiting the Clinical Courses catalogue.
Karen Marriano, nurse and Infection Control Link Practitioner, Farranlea community nursing unit, Cork city
I found the course to be better than a face to face course as it was saving time, no travel required, very convenient and very easy to access and follow. It is not complicated to do the courses, the information can be complex but it is explained very simply using examples. After doing the course I am much more aware of what I am doing compared to before I did the course. The learning has made me stop and think. The more you do them the more you are reminded of the best way of improving infection prevention and control. I have definitely put my new knowledge into practice, most recently the module on urinary tract infections and using dip-sticks. We are moving away from the practice of using dipsticks and we are following the new guidance. We are reducing our antibiotic
Ann O’Connor, nurse and Infection Control Link Practitioner, St Anne’s, Caherciveen, Co Kerry Our first introduction to AMRIC online training was at the beginning of the pandemic when we followed the PPE donning and doffing e-learning programmes. It was a time when people were very worried about COVID-19 and it was good to see the demonstration of best practice so we could follow it. There is no denying that we benefitted from that. Since then there have been some important developments around managing urinary tract infections (UTIs). In the past antimicrobial stewardship would have been left to the doctors and prescribers, but now I feel that nursing and health care assistant staff have the authority to take action. We have changed our practice in relation to using dip sticks and have reduced antibiotic use. Our health care assistants are now very much aware that our residents may need to take on more fluids. We are managing our antimicrobial stewardship on the floor, putting our learning into action. We can see first-hand the in antimicrobial stewardship. One of the other changes that we have put in place following the online training is having hand sanitiser at the point of care so that staff have easy access and it acts as a reminder to sanitise before and after caring for our residents. We have also done education and training for our residents in managing their own hand hygiene and cough etiquette. The AMRIC online course is simple to use and interactive, as a Link Practitioner, I welcome this online training as it is easy to access, is available 24 hours and open to all healthcare staff.
prescribing for UTIs and have made changes to fluid intake for our residents. It has made me more aware of our role in antimicrobial stewardship and antibiotics use The AMRIC online course is a great place to go if you have any doubts on doing infection control, it is very simple to use and good to have that resource to check. I really like that is always on, you can check in at any time I appreciate that AMRIC is its own ‘brand’. The colour is bright and when I see and read AMRIC, I automatically know that I’m going to be dealing with concepts on IPC.
