Outbreak Preparedness and Control - The Challenge of Winter Viruses

Authored by:
ICNet and Sandra Callery - Director of Infection Prevention & Control from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

In April 2011, ICNet met with Sandra Callery, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Sunnybrook Health Sciences. During the initial consultation phase, the ICNet team understood the needs of Sunnybrook to be:
• Safe, rounded communication
• Meaningful alerts to something new to the facility or requiring immediate additional precautions
• Denominator data 
• Ability to quickly calculate rates with various HCAIs 

"One of the components that I find beneficial is the Alert feature for significant conditions and/or significant organisms. Another good feature is the Outbreak report and line listing. This report is very quick to generate and presents information in an easy-to-interpret format."

"Spending less time searching for information, allows more time for important dialogue between the infection prevention and control team and the staff on the patient units to which they are assigned. This gives our team a better opportunity to participate in infection prevention practice changes that enhance patient safety. One thing that has impressed me the most is the support we have received from the ICNet team, who continue to help us optimize the software.”

"With a team consisting of 11 Infection Prevention and Control coordinators and 2 physicians, it is extremely important that we work together and communicate efficiently and relay information in a consistent manner. ICNet provides us the forum to do just that. Since installing ICNet, we have seen considerable enhancements to our surveillance data collection."