SHEA offers free online infection control education course for COVID-19
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The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America is offering a free online course for health care providers on infection control practices, hand hygiene, pneumonia and personal protective equipment, or PPE, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While efforts to reduce health care-associated infections (HAIs) have been effective for certain infection types within specific care settings, HAIs still affect one in every 20 hospitalized patients, leading to morbidity, mortality and excess health care costs,” Hilary Babcock, MD, MPH, past president of SHEA and chair of the SHEA Education and Research Foundation, told Healio. “One cause may be persistent gaps between recommended infection prevention and control strategies and what is practiced. This course was developed to provide practicing clinicians accessible and affordable training opportunities to help close those gaps.”
The program, titled “Prevention Course in HAI Knowledge and Control,” is available via the the SHEA Online Education Center, and will be offered free of charge until May 31, 2020. Program participants are urged to prioritize the modules centered on PPE use, safe hand hygiene and pneumonia prevention.
Babcock noted that because of the pace of the pandemic, expanding upon or building a new iteration of the course could prove difficult.
“Given this fast-moving response to COVID-19, it is unlikely that another course could be built during the response, especially since health care epidemiologists and others in infection prevention and control are leading these efforts,” Babcock said.
The course includes a preassessment that can highlight potential areas of improvement for the user. Maintenance of certification credits and continuing education also are available. The course can be accessed here.
“Now more than ever, health care workers need the critical information and skills to keep themselves and their patients safe,” Babcock said. “Infection prevention and control processes are not necessarily intuitive, and the need for refreshing these skills among health care workers is high in normal times and critical during this global pandemic.” – by Eamon Dreisbach
Disclosure: Babcock reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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