Equipping Providers With the Best Principles in Infection Prevention

Frank Bell, MD, FAAP
Pediatric Infectious Disease Physician
WCAAP Board of Trustees, Swedish Hospital Representative
These are unprecedented and challenging times for Pediatric Providers in our State. COVID continues not only to add to our workload, but to fundamentally change the way we approach our work, our patients and our colleagues. Progress with vaccines is encouraging, but we do not know how long it will take for effective vaccines to get to our communities, or when the next infectious pandemic will strike.

Pre-COVID, the US Centers for Disease Control, CDC, had been working on a national training initiative to bring the principles of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) out from acute care facilities, and firmly into the community including pediatric and primary care offices, with the objective that all staff who work in healthcare should be familiar and comfortable with the strategies required to keep our own families, our patients and our communities free from the risks of infection acquired at either work or from a visit to the office.

WCAAP has been invited to work with the CDC in presenting Project Firstline, an educational program in Infection Prevention aiming to reach every healthcare worker in the US. As a partner in this initiative, WCAAP will provide a virtual training program, December through March, built on the success of this year’s WCAAP COVID Community Pediatrics calls which have concluded. For this program we will also partner with the Washington State Nurses Association, WSNA, extending invitations to Healthcare Staff working with WCAAP members including nurses, MAs, and other interested parties. These calls will occur for WCAAP, WSNA and other health care personnel Wednesdays at 7:00-7:30AM, once in December and twice a month January to March.

The training program will provide ‘best principles’ in Infection Prevention, informed by our experience with COVID in recent months and with sight on the pandemic still ahead of us, but will not target COVID specifically. The initiative has been designed by the CDC with an emphasis on partnership and shared learning. WCAAP intends to align with this spirit to provide content that we hope will prove useful to you and your colleagues.

Download a flyer!

Dates: December 16, 7:00-7:30AM, then 

2^nd and 4^th Wednesdays of each month Jan – Mar.

To join:

Tags: Chapter Programs