Upcoming Gold Standard Auditor Training
14th & 15th August, Northern Health
Places are still available for this workshop, please register on the HHA website under Audits/Upcoming Workshops.  The HHA website is currently being updated, please contact Jennifer Bradford on 9342 9356 for assistance if required.

Hand Hygiene Auditor Training and Validation
Annual validation is a method of ensuring all auditors remain up-to-date with their knowledge of the 5 Moments definitions and audit practices. This in turn ensures valid and reliable data being submitted as a part of the National Hand Hygiene Initiative.

It is the responsibility of each Organisation Administrator to ensure all their auditors submitting data to HHA have completed the auditor online learning package and collected 100 moments in the last twelve months. Auditors who do not meet these criteria are required to follow the Lapsed Auditor Pathway  (see link). This is a HHA requirement, and if not met will result in the auditor being removed from the Hand Hygiene Compliance Application (HHCApp), resulting in an inability to enter data.

Please remember that the pre-workshop online learning module is a mandatory component of auditor training, so each trained auditor needs to have this in their LMS profile when HHA are reviewing their status as an auditor.

It is also important to ensure that all newly trained auditors are registered as having completed their training on the HHA auditor register: http://www.hha.org.au/ForHealthcareWorkers/workshops/hha-auditor-register.aspx

The VICNISS 2018-2019 Surveillance Plans are due by 31st June 2018. These plans are to be submitted by web form via the ‘Manage Annual Surveillance Plan’ site on the VICNISS User Portal. NOTE: A recording of the Webinar ‘How to submit annual Surveillance Plan’ is available as a refresher via this link https://www.vicniss.org.au/media/1651/2017-05-17-1200-how-to-submit-next-years-vicniss-annual-surveillance-plan-online.mp4

As a reminder ALL Victorian public hospitals and ALL Victorian public Aged Care Homes are required to submit their own individual surveillance plan.

It is likely that there will be some changes to the requirements in the performance monitor which will affect hospitals performing surgical site surveillance. The requirements are still being finalised by DHHS however we will endeavour to inform you as soon as possible in order that you can complete your surveillance plans.  

The 2018 HCW Influenza Vaccination campaign should now be well underway. A reminder that this year, Aged Care Homes are required to submit HCW Influenza Vaccination uptake data by each ACH. Acute hospitals may report by health service which includes any ACH’s data in the denominator and numerator, however, each ACH is still required to submit their own data. There is a separate data form for ACH data submission.

The target for the Acute Hospitals/Health services has been increased to 80%. There is no target for the ACH group.

The Victorian Department of Health and Human Service’s HCW influenza immunization program information sheet is available on the VICNISS website.

It has been decided that for the Small Hospitals’ Group, there will no Point Prevalence Survey module required in the 2018 – 2019 surveillance year. You may, of course, chose to complete the HCW Measles and/or Hepatitis B Immunity modules to compare the data from the previous years’ data.

A web form is currently being developed for the Surgical Antibiotic Prophylaxis module. Currently, it is the last module where data is submitted to VICNISS by fax.  It is anticipated that data will be submitted electronically by the new surveillance year – July 2018.

All Victorian aged care homes are eligible to collect and submit data for the new VICNISS resident and influenza/ pneumococcal/herpes zoster vaccination surveillance modules. All Public Sector Residential Aged Care Services are required to participate as part of the Department of Health and Human Services Infection Indicator Program. Data are to be collected on a single day during September and submitted by September 30th, 2018. Protocols, data collection forms and reporting instructions can be accessed via the VICNISS website.

If you are experiencing problems with any VICNISS web form please check which internet browser you are using. The web forms require at least Internet Explorer version 9.0 or above. If your version is lower than 9.0 contact your IT department to update your version or install another browser such as Google Chrome, or Firefox.