Infection Control Nurse at Reddington Hospital

Job description

• An Infection Control Nurse is a nursing professional who focuses on evaluating and improving the quality of patient care in a healthcare setting.

Duties include:

· Conducts technical Identification of infectious disease processes.

• Differentiate colonization, infection and contamination.
• Interpret results of diagnostic/lab reports.
• Recognize epidemiologically significant organisms for immediate review and investigation.
• Differentiate among prophylactic, empiric, and therapeutic uses of antimicrobials.
• Identify indications for microbiologic monitoring.

Surveillance and epidemiologic investigations.

• Collection and compilation of surveillance data.
• Ability to identify and implement an Outbreak investigation

Preventing/controlling the transmission of infectious agents.

• Develop and review infection prevention and control policies and procedures
• Identify and implement infection prevention and control strategies to prevent the transmission of infectious agents.
• Performs patient rounding on all patients with new diagnosis of multidrug resistant organism.
• Assess compliance with healthcare acquired infection prevention bundles with direct patient contact and evaluation of process measures.

Collaboration with Employee/occupational health:

• Collaborates with EH in the development of strategies that address the risk of disease transmission to HCW and ancillary staff.
• Provide counseling, follow-up, work restriction recommendations related to communicable diseases or following exposures in collaboration with Employee Wellness nurse.
• Participates in development and review of EH policies and procedures related to infection prevention and control.
• Assists in the Hepatitis B Vaccination campaign.
• Consults on post-exposure protocols and activities related to communicable diseases.

Education and research:

• Serves as an educator and educational resource for HCW, ancillary staff, physicians, patients, families, and the general public.
• Assess needs, develop goals and measurable objectives and prepare plans for educational offerings.
• Apply principles of adult learning to educational strategies and delivery of educational sessions.
• Prepare, present, or coordinate educational workshops. Lectures, discussion or one-on-one instruction on a variety of infection prevention and control topics.
• Apply critical reading skills to evaluate research findings.
• Utilizes appropriate information technology in educational design and delivery.

Leadership: 

• Serves as a leader, mentor, and role model.
• Provides direction and works collaboratively with others.
• Shares knowledge and expertise.
• Mentors less experienced health care providers and ancillary personnel.
• Recommends specific equipment, personnel, and resources for the infection prevention and control program.
• Assists with evaluation of accreditation/regulatory compliance issue and facilitates compliance.

Consultation: 

• Provides knowledge and guidance in infection prevention, control, and epidemiology.
• Stays current with developments in infection prevention and control.
• Integrates into practice, policies, and procedures: pertinent regulatory requirements, accreditation standards, and guidelines.
• Supports patient/families, administration, committees, HCW, and ancillary staff in infection prevention, control and epidemiology issues.
• Provides input into patient safety and health care quality initiatives.

Performance improvement:

• Functions as a part of performance improvement initiatives to promote positive patient and employee outcomes.
• Identifies opportunities for improvement based on observations, process and outcome indicators, and other findings.
• Acts as an agent of change and participates in the change process.
• Directs the organization’s infection prevention and control improvement activities.
• Participates in the organization’s multidisciplinary improvement strategies.
• Utilizes established measurement tools and techniques, e.g., outbreak investigation, root cause analysis, etc.
• Integrates surveillance findings into formal plans for improvement of practice and patient outcomes
• Collaborates with risk management/quality management in the identification and review of adverse and sentinel events.

Knowledge

• Bsc Nursing/Bsc Public Health, added advantage Masters Health related field
• Certification in Infection Control/ Management of HAI surveillance systems
• Knowledge of the Hospital Acquired Infections and Monitoring protocols
• Knowledge of the required Infection Control related Data to collect and analyse and report.
• Knowledge of non- clinical policies relating to the delivery of Health care services