At the Community Health care Center we see several types of surveillance happening daily, especially focused on infection control and patient safety. One the most visible forms the the IPAC surveillance. Staff monitor patients daily for any signs of infection, such as fever, coughing, or gastrointestinal symptoms, and most recently triaging of Measles. We ensure patients are unto date on vaccines like flu, COVID-19 and shingles, especially in high risk groups.
We also do staff monitoring, especially in flu season, 48 hr return to work if no new symptoms present. This helps keep staff and patients safe.

At our community level practice, we monitor client’s for fever or change in health status. We continuously monitor our client’s to ensure they are up to date on their vaccines and hold vaccine clinics to ensure anyone in the community needing a vaccination is able to access it. We created policies and procedures around sickness at work for our workers to not only protect them but our client’s as well to ensure the spread of the sickness isn’t spread to the best of our ability.

Hello everyone,
In my unit, I’ve noticed that aside from healthcare staff like PCAs and Nurses, who identify the signs and symptoms the patient has, this also flags us nurses to do a more thorough assessment. We also have a clock in MEDITECH, specifically for Nursing Assessment for COVID-19, which includes a checklist of symptoms. At the bottom, it asks if we had provided certain medications, such as Acetaminophen. Then it will show us to either continue with routine precautions or to switch the patient’s precaution sign to droplet and contact. After this, nurses are to either call IPAC during business hours or do a referral after hours so that IPAC is aware of the change in condition through documentation. Our unit manager follows up with us daily and recommends what else to do during business hours. Since I work mostly evening shifts, I noticed that every shift, there is always a supervisor who does their rounds to everyone, especially the ones we have flagged for change in condition initially. For me, everything I have mentioned is very important. I appreciate the most are the manager and the supervisors who follow up with the nurses on the unit to give us extra support and resources, and also to make sure that we have done the appropriate steps, whether calling the IPAC, calling the doctor to do more tests, and to make sure everyone is informed so that we are all in the same page.

When I was previously employed as a PSW at a Long Term Care Facility I was able to see firsthand how surveillance helped in preventing big outbreaks. At the end of our shift, we would be required to fill out an assessment that required us to input information such as whether the client had fever, chills, or any symptoms such as a new cough. Every shift would be required to fill out this form, and it would help everyone establish new changes. I thought this was extremely helpful and can also help the IPAC team monitor closely what the new symptoms are. I believe surveillance is extremely helpful as it can allow staff members to catch the new symptoms firsthand before it spread to other clients or staff members.

I work in a community centre in a rural community and we are currently in the process of diagnosing and treating a family in our community for Strep A.
The nurse practitioner I work with approached me earlier this week about doing a rapid strep clinic with the entire family within our practise. This would include rapid strep test and then treatment from the NP.
The reason behind this is that we have been dealing with ongoing strep infections with this entire family since the beginning of March. The fear is that a family has being carrying Strep A and asymptomatic and is reinfecting the family and we worry the community.
We have recognized this trend through surveillance and data collection. Its important in our community because of the high risk of community acquired infections

At the community level that I currently work in, we see a lot of hospital acquired illnesses coming back into community, ie: C-Diff. While it is treated in hospital, they come back home with the illness. We continue to ensure the safety of the staff working with client by providing the proper PPE to them, proper education and support, not only for the clients but for the family as well. We continue to have close contact with their physician as well for updates as well. We also have information sessions from our community health nurses for community members to access as well.

As a private nurse working in the community I am not familiar with having an official IPAC team performing surveillance in my workplace. This huge responsibility falls on the shoulders of my clients family. They are responsible to ensure nurses come into work with proper PPE, the environment is well maintained and clean and to monitor for early signs of symptoms of infections in the healthcare team and patient, to just to name a few. As a nurse it is my duty to report any signs of infections I may have and to update my clients family on vaccinations that are required. It is equally as important to remain vigilant when it comes to infection control measures as you would be required to do in a hospital setting.

A current surveillance is ensuring immunizations are up to date.
As an example of why this is important – the current measles outbreak. We have been doing a lot of health teaching especially to parents of children who are eligible for the MMR vaccine. We have offered clinics to patients who require a MMR booster for both children and adults

Another vaccine I feel is important is the vaccine for pneumonia for patients over the age of 65. This past winter there were many cases of pneumonia that required patients to be hospitalized .

By keeping up with vaccine surveillance hopefully this will lead to a safer community.