Maintaining readiness for infectious disease threats
Westmead clinicians stay up to date with specialised training to keep patients, staff and communities safe from the global threat of infectious disease.
With outbreaks of high consequence infectious diseases (HCIDs) such as Ebola continuing to make headlines around the world, clinicians across the Westmead Health Precinct are undertaking specialised training to ensure NSW is ready to respond if a serious infectious disease reaches our shores.
The NSW Biocontainment Centre at Westmead training program equips healthcare workers with the skills needed to safely care for patients with highly infectious diseases while protecting themselves, their colleagues and the wider community.
Infectious Diseases Physician Dr Patricia Ferguson and Nurse Educator Nikki Lennox lead the training, which brings together staff from Western Sydney Local Health District and the Children's Hospital, Westmead.
For Patricia, preparing healthcare workers to respond safely and confidently is at the heart of the program.
“I think we often forget that clinicians are also human. We have families at home who worry about us. We can provide better care if we know we're going to stay safe and well,” Patricia said.
Training focuses on infection prevention and control, including the safe use of personal protective equipment (PPE), one of the most important safeguards when caring for patients with an HCID.
“You have to be safe to put on and take off the PPE, and to do that in a very structured way using methods that are well established in similar centres internationally,” Patricia said.
“When we take the PPE off, that's the time of highest risk for acquiring infection, because of possible contamination.”
She said one of the greatest advances in healthcare has been understanding how infections spread and how to prevent transmission.
"It starts with picking up what the infection is and then making sure you do the correct measures to prevent it from spreading," she said.
To gain accreditation, staff complete a series of study days and practical exercises designed to simulate what an activation of the NSW Biocontainment Centre would look like.
Nikki said regular training ensures a skilled workforce is ready to respond when needed.
"It's ensuring that they know about the safety components in infection control, and physically practicing it over and over again," she said.
The program includes clinicians from a wide range of disciplines, helping maintain dedicated adult and paediatric teams capable of responding to a public health emergency.
We're not teaching people how to do their jobs, we're teaching them how to do their complex jobs safely in an area that has that high level of complexity, infection control, and contamination risk," Nikki said.