Project Firstline: Teaching the ‘Why’ of Infection Prevention
Education effort could expand knowledge across workforce
In paring down its isolation guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is moving in step with its Project Firstline initiative — an ambitious effort to teach all healthcare workers the basics of infection prevention. The idea is to protect both patients and healthcare workers by using short, specific videos and other cutting-edge tools that can be accessed on computers and mobile devices, says Michael Bell, MD, deputy director of the CDC Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
“The good news about Project Firstline content is that if you get it — if you hear the message about where the infectious risk is and how it spreads — it [protects both groups],” Bell says. “I don’t think there’s a healthcare worker out there who’s trying to create risk for colleagues in the workplace or put themselves at risk. By the same token, no one is trying to cause infections to spread to patients. They want to do the right thing.”
Currently, the website has short videos and other resources to train healthcare workers to recognize infection risks by learning how germs spread in healthcare and how they can establish reservoirs within a facility. This is “the first step in understanding when to take action to protect your patients and yourself from infections,” the CDC states on the site.1
Although facilities have infection control teams, individual healthcare workers face daily decisions that could prevent or enable an infection, says Bell.
“We’ve focused a lot of attention on device-associated infections because they cause severe illness, but infection transmission is something that can happen minute-by-minute all across healthcare delivery,” he says.
Another key feature is emphasizing the “why” of certain precautions: “The reason behind the practice,” Bell explains. “For a generation, we have hit our colleagues with rules. Lists of rules posted on the wall.”
The Firstline project is seen somewhat like “crowd sourcing” with a broad reach of short messages over smartphones and other devices, Bell says.
The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) has long emphasized the adage that infection control is “everyone’s business.” In condensing its patient isolation guidelines and using educational outreach through Project Firstline, the CDC is underscoring that point.
“APIC has partnered with CDC on Project Firstline, most recently on helping to conduct a scan of infection prevention training programs nationwide,” says Devin Jopp, EdD, MS, CEO of the association. “We’re anticipating expanding our relationship with the CDC in 2022 to help provide technical assistance and support as the program continues to expand. We’re very supportive of infection prevention being everyone’s business.”
REFERENCE
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Project Firstline. https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/projectfirstline/index.html
In paring down its isolation guidelines, the CDC is moving in step with its Project Firstline initiative — an ambitious effort to teach all healthcare workers the basics of infection prevention.
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