April Parsons, RN, BSN, CIC, was hired as NHRMC’s Interim Manager of Infection Prevention and Control and almost immediately played a vital role in the annual DNV accreditation survey.
“April brings a wealth of knowledge, including working with COVID-19 in Hawaii before her assignment here,” said Sue Ballato, Administrator Clinical Outcomes. “We are very fortunate to have her leadership in IPC during this time.”
In her first days at NHRMC, Parsons started building relationships with many clinical leaders, EVS leaders and their teams.
“It is a very dynamic and transitional time in Infection Prevention (IP) at NHRMC and throughout the world right now,” said Parsons. “I have been working, traveling and adventuring (Hawaii, Florida, California) recently. I plan to put 25+ years of experience and all of my newly learned lessons to use in reorganizing the team with our top priorities to create a Collaborative Partnership and perform timely surveillance for Hospital Associated Infections (HAIs) to reduce infections and improve patient care.”
Before coming to NHRMC, Parsons served as interim Infection Preventionist at Hawaii Pacific Healthcare’s Pali Momi Medical Center in Aiea, HI. where she provided infection prevention oversight. In that role, she also worked on standardization of policies and protocols and focused on COVID-19 pandemic response planning and implementation. Prior to that position, Parsons held several other infection prevention and control positions in various states.
Parsons said she’s been told team building is one of her strengths. “I am trying to put those skills to good use by rebuilding a team that has pulled together during COVID in an amazing way even with the absence of their long-time leader,” she said. “It is necessary to dive in to the NHRMC culture to help determine how to reorganize workflows and utilize everyone’s strongest skills. Sue Ballato’s support and the high level of accountability I witnessed during DNV preparation will make that a pleasure!”
Parsons said work is underway to enable her team to report infections in near real-time and focus on boot-on-the-ground efforts and clinical support.
“We are onboarding Bugsy, the new Infection Prevention data system in EPIC, and developing some of the definitions that trigger isolation and improve infection surveillance efficiency,” she said. “We have three extremely experienced and knowledgeable IPs; Lisa Barnes, Angela Clark, and Ricky Marion. One goal is to figure out how to best utilize their expertise in the evolving COVID-19 pandemic environment. So, expect some reorganization and higher visibility from them. We are lucky to have Pam Firetti, our Public Health Epidemiologist, to assist with Ops-type COVID questions and perform our public reporting. Dr. Paul Kamitsuka, genius Epidemiologist, is willing to contribute an inordinate amount of time guiding our IP efforts and cutting down my learning curve immensely. I am excited to be a part of such a great team!”