HOUSTON – The Houston Health Department is proud to locally launch Project Firstline, a CDC-led infection control training collaborative designed to meet the diverse needs of healthcare personnel. Project Firstline seeks to empower Houston’s healthcare workers with the knowledge and skills to better protect themselves, their facility, family, and community from infectious disease threats, such as COVID-19.
According to the CDC, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted gaps in infection control knowledge and practice in healthcare settings nationwide. Project Firstline aims to provide every Houstonian working in a healthcare facility with a foundational understanding of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and the confidence to use it every day to protect the nation from infectious disease threats, such as COVID-19.
“Together, we have the power to stop the spread of infectious diseases including COVID-19. To stop the spread, everyone working in a healthcare facility needs a foundational knowledge of infection prevention and control and must be ready to implement infection control protocols throughout their workday,” said Tolulope Olumuyiwa, staff epidemiologist for the health department. “This is the collective goal that we are all working toward,” she stated.
Project Firstline’s free training and engagement opportunities will include short, accessible training videos, virtual interactive events, and live presentations to ensure every worker in every healthcare setting—from clinicians to environmental services workers—is empowered with the science and reasoning behind essential infection control practices, and can confidently apply those practices to protect themselves, their facility, their family and their community.
Project Firstline training sessions are accessible and offered regardless of previous training or educational background. The training will be tailored by facility type and will be a direct “train the trainer” opportunity for healthcare staff. Class session length can range from 10 minutes for quick in and out sessions to up to 60 minutes for detailed lectures, which can be live or pre-recorded. Courses may be offered as virtually interactive events or in-person training or tele-mentoring with the appropriate subject matter expert will also be available. These interactive sessions will also have built-in knowledge checks throughout the course.
Training materials will expand over time to cover these and other infection control topics:
- Infection Control: The Basics
- Source Control
- PPE: Basics
- PPE: Donning and Doffing
- Hand Hygiene
- Crisis Standards of Care
- Triage and Screening
- Standard and Transmission-Based Precautions
- Microbiology Basics
- Recognizing Risk
- Environmental Cleaning and Disinfection
- COVID-19 special topics
As one of the initial parts of the process, an online Learning Needs Assessment (LNA) may be completed to enable health department health planners to tailor the development and delivery of the Project Firstline training based on each healthcare facilities’ existing needs, knowledge, and previous experience. Visit http://bit.ly/FirstLineSurvey to go directly to the LNA link.
Healthcare agencies can learn more about Project Firstline Houston training and support at hgohealthyhouston.org/project-firstline or by contacting us at [email protected] or 281-753-0298.
Project Firstline—the power to stop infections. Together.