Hi
with great thanks to my friend Claire Kilpatrick @claireekt for this months Guest post
Joining
the dots through wonderful people working in health and social care around the
world,I am very honored to share on my blog
Working
in healthcare is amazing. Over time you meet so many wonderful people. Don't
get me wrong, you won't hit it off with everyone, but when I stop and think
about it, I feel that a career in healthcare is actually all about wonderful
people.
As
a nurse I realised my strengths, and weaknesses, early on! The type of care I
could provide was suited to particular settings (ICU) and then for me it was
always about moving on, making a difference at different levels, influencing
away from the bedside. I remain in awe of people who provide hands on care
every day to patients and other service users.
Since
2008 I have worked with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on aspects of
global patient safety http://www.who.int/patientsafety/en/
Since
2012 this has been as a consultant under the auspices of the registered company
my colleague Jules Storr and I set up, @S3Global
When
people ask me what I actually do though it can be hard to explain...
When
Tommy and I connected through Twitter it was for a different, personal reason,
not about what I did for a job. It was because as a carer I was reaching out
for some help and support and didn't know where to look, despite knowing the
health and social care system so well! Tommy and I met a few times in 2015 and
the words of wisdom imparted have changed how I see the world; vital if you are
to cope as a carer. For me this was another example of meeting a wonderful
person because I happened to work in health, and because I happened spend a lot
of time on Twitter!
Anyway
when Tommy finally asked me ‘what do you actually do, can you write a blog
about it?’, I wanted to try to explain it in a way that connected our different
worlds, connected all the wonderful work that goes on around the world every
day. I, like many others I am sure, believe that what I do can makes the lives
of all those being cared for, and for carers, ‘feel better’ and most
importantly safer.
To
quote from a recent @S3Global blog https://s3global.wordpress.com/author/kshealthcareltd/ written by my business
partner Jules, ''…debates on quality of healthcare usually, at some point or
other, inevitably drift towards the topic of the prevention and control of
healthcare associated infections (HAI).” “Integrating {infection prevention and
control} IPC as an holistic component of efforts to strengthen the entire
health system is logical…”
I
have spent these last years being privileged to talk to civil servants, policy
makers, academics, managers and frontline workers to tell them how important
infection prevention and specifically 'safe hands' are when providing care, and
to explain that hand hygiene is a key indicator of overall quality of care in
any health system. Not only do I truly believe this but this has been noted in
the literature http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1657884
The
fact that achieving improvements in IPC, including hand hygiene at the point of
care, means understanding behaviour change, psychology, human factors http://www.health.org.uk/publication/integrating-human-factors-infection-prevention-and-control means we can understand so
much about the overall behaviours of health workers which is invaluable
learning for any aspect of health and social care and for achieving quality
universal health coverage in every country http://www.who.int/servicedeliverysafety/en/
‘A day in working my life’ - might
include:
-
writing various evidence-based documents and communications, for aspects of
IPC including hand hygiene and injection safety http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/44102/1/9789241597906_eng.pdf
-
listening to colleagues and the challenges they are experiencing so that
strategies can be adapted and presented in context, this includes for Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), hand hygiene in a range of settings and in
support of the antimicrobial resistance agenda
-
discussing and preseenting the best strategies to ensure documents aren’t
just pieces of paper on a web site but are used in practice
-
connecting people to ensure they can learn from each other and share country
experiences and ideas for capacity building for example through Webber
teleclasses and Private Organisations for Patient Safety
-
campaigning to create and maintain social movements and sustainable
improvements for patients, health workers and carers
|
Working
now as I do in global health means that I continue to meet wonderful people. My
closest colleagues are English (given I am Scottish!), Italian, Iranian,
American, Japanese, Romanian, Belgian, Canadian, Pakistani, from Oman. But I
also get to talk to people from so many other countries every day.
I
also have lots of wonderful and inspiring health-related connections on
Twitter, including Tommy.
Author:
Claire Kilpatrick @claireekt is Director @S3Global - providing consultancy to
the World Health Organisation
#evidence
#behaviourchange #ptsafety #infectionprevention #UHC #globalhealth
#implementation #communication
