The newly developed Train the Trainer series, in collaboration with Compass, KFMC Health Improvement Partners (KFMC), and South Dakota Project Firstline (SD PFL), is set to host its third training session on March 19, 2024. Session 3 will provide attendees with the knowledge and foundation to understand the pathways germs take to create and spread illness. Healthcare workers will be informed of the best practices to improve infection prevention and control at their facility. Those registered for this session will learn the tools and resources available for healthcare facilities to use with their staff along with how to share the training with others in healthcare.
Project Firstline Train the Trainer Series
March 19, 2024, at 1:00 PM Central
“It is important for healthcare workers to have the basic infection control knowledge on the pathways for germs” said Jess Danko, MSHA, RRT, LTC-CIP, program director for the South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care (SDFMC). “Session 3 training will provide attendees with an opportunity to learn how to present this education to staff and how to adapt this training to various departments or healthcare specialties.”
Infection preventionists in the critical access setting are often spread across numerous positions within the healthcare setting. So, the Train the Trainer series gives an overview of the tools and resources available from Project Firstline (PFL) and teaches attendees how to adapt these tools to fit their healthcare training and educational needs. These tools are ready to use and free, which saves the infection preventionist time when forming their infection prevention educational plan.
“From my time working as a single infection preventionist in a small rural hospital, I often found it difficult to have educational material that engaged all staff no matter their role,” expressed Loretta Fitzgerald, BSN, RN, quality improvement consultant for infection control at KFMC Heath Improvement Partners.
“I have had the opportunity to utilize the Project Frontline resources for more than a year now, most recently for in-person training throughout Kansas. Feedback from our training participants have included that the content was easy to understand, and the activities kept them engaged. The Recognizing Risks material really seemed to lay the groundwork for understanding why infection prevention is important for all in attendance.”
For facilities that already have a solid infection prevention and control educational platform, Project Firstline has tools and resources that can be added to their current platform. The opportunity to share these resources through the collaboration with the COMPASS program has provided SD PFL with an opportunity to reach critical access hospitals (CAH) within the state of South Dakota.
Danko added, “We see this opportunity as a way of reaching critical access hospitals that have not worked with the SD PFL team up to this point of the project. The farther we can spread the infection prevention education, the better the overall state of healthcare in South Dakota becomes.”