Developing a new cross-disciplinary network to realise the potential of visualisation approaches to address healthcare associated infections

Issue: A central issue in infection prevention and control work is the invisibility under normal circumstances of pathogenic organisms. Associated lack of, or delayed, feedback to clinicians on the efficacy of their IPC practice compounds the challenge for education, practice development and quality improvement. Within this context the potential for more dynamic approaches to visualising pathogens, practice and place remains under-developed. This presentation outlines key aspects of the inception of a new international network to address this issue. Project: The HAIVAIRN (Healthcare Associated Infection Visualisation and Ideation Research Network) project ( http://visionon.org ) aims to explore the question: how can we better address the problem of HAIs through visualisation-related ideation and applications? Its ambit ranges from visualisation of micro, unseen phenomena such as pathogens and the mind’s eye, to visualisation of macro phenomena relating to human interactions in particular healthcare environments e.g. from aspects of the imagination through to new, scientific information (e.g. microbiological data) and related professional behaviours. Enquiry is structured around a series of workshop events with interim activities. Results: This UK based network has so far coalesced expertise from medical microbiology, psychology, social geography, literature, design, nursing, cleaning services, communication, social policy and health humanities. This includes inputs from Canada and Australia, and a first workshop meeting has taken place. This established insights into how different disciplines understand and use visualisation and associated ideas, and identified areas of perceived research need and opportunity such as: mapping pathogen movement; communicating risk in context; designing interventions to influence practice; and visualising healthcare staff experiences. A set of visual mappings is currently being created to highlight loci and foci for cross-disciplinary work and two further workshops are planned. Lessons learned: There is much enthusiasm for breaking down disciplinary barriers and the presentation aims to further this process to expand the network