Update on: October 11, 2022
Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic, our Infection Control Practitioners (ICPs) worked additional hours each weekend to follow up on COVID-19 results to support sites with outbreaks, enhanced surveillance and any infection prevention or control measures needed. Having the extra ICP support on weekends was extremely well received by frontline staff and leaders, which has prompted an expansion of our practice.
Effective September 9th, the IPAC Team expanded services to officially add 2-3 infection control practitioners on the weekends, to cover both acute and LTC facilities. This is in addition to the 24/7 support of your regular on-call Medical Microbiologist.
Does this include statutory holidays?
This change does not include statutory holidays. For IPAC support on a statutory holiday, please continue to refer to the IPAC intranet page, and if an answer is not there and it is urgent, support can be sought from the Medical Microbiologist on-call.
What hours will IPAC be available at weekend?
The ICPs will be working regular daytime hours.
How do I contact IPAC at the weekend?
Call the NRGH and RJH switchboards, who have the contact details for the ICPs available on weekends.
What can you expect from IPAC at the weekend?
ICPs will work from their home sites and provide remote coverage to all other sites. Staff should continue to refer to the IPAC intranet pages for direction. Other than that:
At their home site, ICPs will be providing visible IPAC leadership. This is an opportunity for our ICPs to reach out to staff working at the weekend as a support, providing education opportunities and participating in site/unit audits.
For other sites, the ICPs working will be available to support frontline staff with questions or concerns via telephone or email.
ICPs will also be responding to any emergent issues that may arise.