Hygiene & infection prevention network

Professor Kjeld Møller Pedersen is a health economist and one of the leading experts in estimating the costs of healthcare-associated infections. He is working at the University of Southern Denmark in the Department of Business and Economics and has published more than 400 papers and authored 17 books.

On why it is crucial to prevent healthcare-associated infections:
"People  do not realize that we have a surprisingly high number of deaths from healthcare-associated infections. And then we have the human suffering of the survivors too."

On why healthcare-associated infections do not get much attention from decision-makers in healthcare?
"We lack transparency about the consequences  and  frequency of healthcare-associated infections."

On the cost of the healthcare-associated infections
"A simple way is to look at the number of beds that are used for patients with healthcare-associated infections. That is a considerable number! That number can be turned a monetary value".

"If we want to have the real estimate of healthcare-associated infections, you have to track patients for a considerable period of time, including readmissions and cost for the local communities and the sickness/absence. People will be shocked if we provide the figures on that."

Professor Kjeld Møller Pedersen recommends reading the studies by the Australian Professor and Health Economist Nicholas Graves.

On the episode is Kelly Schmidtke.

Dr. Kelly Schmidtke is a psychologist and a PhD in experimental psychology. She is currently an assistant professor at Warwick Medical School in England. She is the author of several book chapters and research papers. 

On decision making
"Our brain doesn't make decisions, we make decisions, as people. And we have to own our decisions, not cast them off to our brain did all the hard work for us [...] You're the holistic thing."

On population behaviour
"My research drifts more towards population problems, how can we influence population behaviour to drift one direction we deem desirable and stop drifting the other direction we deem undesirable."

On MINDSPACE
"MINDSPACE is an acronym used to describe nine different ways you can nudge people: 1) Messenger, 2) Incentives, 3) Norms, 4) default, 5) salience, 6) priming, 7) Affects, 8) Commitments, 9) Ego these are nine different tools.

On nudging
"A nudge isn't an aspect of our choice environment that exists out there and influences us one way or another. I think a nudge has to be intentionally put there to drift your behaviour in one way or another"

"Fun nudges: "small plates are often recommended to people who try to lose weight. These can work on two levels. 1) perception - visually triggering your mind, 2) practical - you can only get the amount of food (that can be) on the small plate unless you stand up again and refill the plate. This is an example of nudging as long as you're in control of the amount of food. Remember, nudges are supposed to be about your free choice." 

"My favourite example of a nudge is like Shore Drive, which is a road in Chicago that has BIG turns that people often miss if they don't pay attention. [...] When you drive, you use the lines as an indicator for how fast you drive, so what they did was shorten the lines, so people would think they drove faster when approaching a turn. Now perceptually, as you drive, it looks for you like you're driving faster, and you'd hit the brakes and drive the appropriate speed through the turn." 

On the episode is Amina Al-Jardani and Amal Saif Al-Maani.

Dr. Amina Al-Jardani is a Senior consultant microbiologist and the Director of the Central Public Health Laboratories under the Ministry of Health of Oman. She is leading the work of the national reference laboratories involved in the detection of infectious agents.

Dr. Amal Saif Al-Maani is a Senior consultant pediatrician of infectious diseases and the Director of the Infection Prevention & Control Department under the Ministry of Health of Oman. She is working on the national program for IPC and the project for Antimicrobial Resistance.

On working with a team.

"Healthcare is teamwork. A single person will go nowhere without the harmony of the team." - Dr. Amal Saif Al-Maani.

On challenges in healthcare.

"As a healthcare professional, you will face many challenges. To really lead the change and achieve your goals, you need to have 5 P's - passion, persistence, partnerships, patience, persuasion." - Dr. Amina Al-Jardani
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On creating awareness.

"The public is part of one health approach. It's not enough to spread the awareness between the doctors and physicians and leave the people who are taking advantage of the service unaware." - Dr. Amal Saif Al-Maani.

On the podcast is Bob Klaber.

Dr. Bob Klaber is a  Consultant Paediatrician & Director of Strategy, Research & Innovation at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He has a strong interest in behavioral insights work and leadership development. 
 
Bob is a true role model when it comes to kindness. In the episode, he explains the value of kindness in delivering outstanding care and cultivating kindness in our organizations to deliver better results. I promise you that he has some exciting experiences to share. 

On kindness

• "Kindness is right at the heart of everything that is about care."
• "There is a lot of evidence that kindness in care leads to better outcomes."

On opportunities in healthcare

"Over the last 10-15 years, in England where I work, our healthcare system has been quite systematically unkind."

Show notes and some recommendations from Bob:

• Find Bob on Twitter: @bobklaber
• Twitter: Conversation for Kindness. 
• Organizations: The Hush Foundation by Prof. Catherine Crock is hosting an annual conference called The Gathering of Kindness.
• UK consultancy called the Kaleidoscope. 
• Person to follow: Leonard Berry’s research about kindness
• Book: Intelligent Kindness by John Ballat & Penelope Campling
• How to measure kindness: Take a look at this publication by Simon Andersson and Julie
• Brownlie called Getting the measure of kindness: A guide for organisations

On the podcast is Rosie Bartel.

Rosie Bartel is a widow, a mother, and a grandmother. In this episode, she shares her personal story.

In 2009, Rosie underwent a total knee replacement that developed into an MRSA staph infection. The Healthcare-Associated Infection led to 55 surgeries, 200+ hospitalizations, and 100 blood transfusions. She has had sepsis and septic shock 12 times. Finally, she underwent a right leg amputation above the knee, which later developed into a total hip amputation with part of the pelvic bone removed. 

Rosie uses her stories to help and educate both patients, relatives, and healthcare professionals.

On Infection

"I don't think they realize how much one little infection can devastate a person forever."

On being a patient with an HAI

"It's much easier to sit in a chair and tell somebody about hand hygiene than to be laying under those white sheets where you don't have any control over your life."

"I can't blame anybody for it, but let's look at all the ways that could fix the world and make it better for patients and safer for patients every single day."

To purchase a copy of Rosie's book:
Rosie's Story: A Story of Faith, Hope, and Survival:
E-mail [email protected]
$15.00 per copy in the USA / $20.00 overseas.

On the podcast is Cindie Maagaard

Today's guest is Dr. Cindie Maagaard, an associate professor at the Department of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark. She holds a Ph.D. in postmodern English literature. Since 2010, her passion for narratives has turned to investigate organizational communication. Since 2016 her research has increasingly focused on how narratives are used in contexts of health and medicine to help health professionals and patients understand and communicate about illness - and she is one of the leading experts in the field. 

Cindie has published research articles and book chapters on narrative medicine and is the co-editor of a brand new anthology of Danish and international literature written by and about patients and doctors. 

On narrative medicine

A starting point for narrative medicine is that any medical perspective includes a patient's life experiences and relationships, worries, hopes, desires, and more. These perspectives are integrated into a medical perspective. 

On communicating more empathetically through narratives

Give the patient time in the beginning to talk, maybe beginning with a question. Tell me what I need to know about your situation and why you are here? And give the patient time to unfold that. 

Practice attention by reading. 

Show notes:
Recommendations from Cindie

• The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine
• The Wounded Storyteller
• Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors

On the podcast is Nanja Holland Hansen.

Nanja is a psychologist and one of the leading compassion experts in Denmark.

She has worked at Stanford University and Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet. She is a senior instructor at the Compassion Institute in California and the Co-developer of the Compassion Training Certification Program for professionals at Aarhus University. Nanja has also published several books and research articles about compassion and mental health. 

On suffering

"Compassion takes away the heaviness. It doesn't mean that there is less suffering. It's just how you meet that suffering. And that makes all the difference.

On bringing back kindness

"It's these everyday little moments where we can bring some kindness and care."

"There is research showing that it takes only 40 seconds to show compassion. That's all it takes."

Show notes: 

• Effect of a Compassion Cultivation Training Program for Caregivers of People With Mental Illness in Denmark
• Healthcare providers perspectives on compassion training: a grounded theory study
• Healthcare's compassion crisis- TEDxPenn with Stephen Trzeciak
• Compassion Fatigue among Healthcare, Emergency, and Community Service Workers: A Systematic Review

On the podcast is Hugo Sax.

Professor Hugo Sax is a medical doctor, board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases with over 20 years of experience in Infection Prevention and Control. Until 2021, he was Head of the Infection Prevention Program at the University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland.

He is currently a Research Fellow at the Department of Infectious Diseases at Bern University Hospital. He is also a board member and prev. President of Swissnoso, the Swiss National Center for Infection Prevention. He is a member of the First Challenge on Patient Safety at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chief Medical Border Officer at Zurich Airport. 

His research focuses on human factors and systems thinking in healthcare. He also created ‘My five moments for hand hygiene,’ which has become a global standard. 

He teaches Human Factors to medical students and pilots and enjoys flying vintage aerobatic aircraft himself.

On infection prevention
"Now, I think we are in infection prevention 4.0. where system integration and data science are the big things"

On interventions
"You have to imagine the reality of people on the ground, and then design the intervention in a way that takes into account the context of the people"

On human beings
"It's all about realizing the strengths and weaknesses of human beings"

On the podcast is Seven Aghdassi.

Seven works at the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at the recognized Charité University Hospital in Berlin. Seven has a particular interest and specialized knowledge in automated cluster detection and automated surveillance systems. He has worked with the World Health Organization to develop the Infection Prevention and Control Assessment Framework (IPACF).

Additionally, Seven recently won 3rd place in the German award for patient safety for the cluster detection system “CLAR” alongside his colleagues from Charité. He participates in the Charité Digital Clinician Scientist Program funded by the DFG, Charité, and the Berlin Institute of Health.

On digitalization
"The ultimate goal with the automation and digitalization should be to spend less time in front of a computer and more time doing actual patient care."

On surveillance
"Automated surveillance is certainly a target for optimization."

On infection control
"Good advice in life in general but specifically in healthcare and infection control is to be resilient and to see problems as not only problems but as the first step towards a solution."

Seven Aghdassi on ResearchGate

Affiliations
1) Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Berlin, Germany

2) National Reference Center for Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections, Berlin, Germany

3) Berlin Institute of Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, BIH Biomedical Innovation Academy, BIH Charité Digital Clinician Scientist Program, Berlin, Germany

On the podcast is Pierre Parneix.

Pierre, a French medical doctor, has specialized in public health and infection control since 1992. He is the president of the French Society for Hospital Hygiene and heads up the southwestern France healthcare-associated infection control center based at the Bordeaux university hospital. Pierre was also one of the members of the COVID-19 commission for France for President Macron.

Pierre focuses his work on antimicrobial resistance surveillance and prevention in hospitals and communication and intervention support in the field of healthcare-associated infection prevention.

On innovation
"Infection control is medical science, so you need to have innovation and change. But sometimes people are very reluctant to change, which is why making the change is difficult." 

"We need to show that innovation could help us to decrease the burden on infection but also help the professionals to do things more easily - any innovation should be helpful in some way." 

On the cost of outbreaks
"It's known that outbreaks of multidrug-resistant organisms can be very expensive - we need to have progress and innovation in this area."