Atul Gawande, Peter Pronovost to Address APIC Attendees

Award-winning author and surgeon Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, will offer his unique perspectives on the practice of medicine, the struggle to improve performance and healthcare reform when he delivers the keynote address during the 37th annual Educational Conference and International Meeting of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). The meeting, which is the largest annual gathering of infection preventionists from around the world, takes place July 11-15 in New Orleans.

Gawande, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, will present "The Checklist Manifesto: Solutions for facing the risks, complexity and cost of medicine" at 9:45 a.m. on Monday, July 12. A general and endocrine surgeon on the staff of the Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) and Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Gawande is also associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and research director for the BWH Center for Surgery and Public Health.

Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, FCCM, will also address conference attendees and sign copies of his new book, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctors Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out. His presentation takes place Monday, July 12 at 11 a.m. An international patient safety leader, Pronovost is best-known for developing a checklist to prevent catheter-related bloodstream infections. Pronovost is professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is medical director of the Quality and Safety Research Group at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

"We are delighted to provide such high-quality content for our annual conference," says APIC 2010 president Cathryn L. Murphy, RN, PhD, CIC. "With more than 60 sessions, the meeting provides the latest science and clinical best practices which can be adapted and applied by healthcare facilities all around the world as they strive to reduce healthcare-associated infections and protect patients."

Additional highlights of the weeks agenda include:

"Trends in invasive MRSA infections in the U.S: Success and challenges," Scott K. Fridkin, MD, deputy chief, Surveillance Branch, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.

"Back to basics: Ensuring safe injection practices," Joseph F. Perz, DrPH, MA, prevention team leader, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta.

"Improving patient safety and quality of care: Preventing healthcare-associated infections," Don Wright, MD, MPH, deputy assistant secretary for Healthcare Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C.

"Mandatory healthcare worker (HCW) influenza immunizations: Why this may be the only solution," Amy Nichols, RN, MBA, CIC, director, Department of Hospital Epidemiology, UC San Francisco Medical Center and Childrens Hospital, San Francisco.

"The art and science of leadership and followership: Discovering and disseminating infection prevention knowledge," Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Health Systems, Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Strategies for preventing droplet-transmission within the new era of pandemic influenza," Russell N. Olmsted, MPH, CIC, epidemiologist, Infection Control Services, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, Mich.