For nine years, the Healthcare Surfaces Summit has brought healthcare and environmental services (EVS) professionals, manufacturers, building service contractors, and scientists together to solve problems, not just talk about them. This October, that model crossed the Pacific.

On 7 October, the day before the ISSA Cleaning & Hygiene Expo opened, ISSA Healthcare hosted the first ISSA Healthcare Surfaces Forum in Melbourne, in close partnership with the ISSA Oceania & Asia Pacific team. The idea grew out of conversations at last year’s Expo, and the message traveled well: a clean healthcare environment is critical no matter where you live in the world.

Where Evidence Meets Reality

 Liz Orr, Manager of Infection Prevention and Surveillance Service at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, opened the day by putting cleaning teams at the center of patient safety. With Australian hospitals recording approximately 165,000 healthcare-associated infections each year, her message was clear: “Environmental hygiene is a patient safety intervention.”

The panel “From Evidence to Action: What Does Better Healthcare Cleaning Require?” followed, with Liezl Foxcroft of Master Cleaners Training Institute and CrestClean, Carrie Spinks of the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control, and me. Associate Professor Dr Gavin Macgregor-Skinner of ISSA and GBAC then showed how the EPIS framework turns evidence into lasting improvement, using a practical bed-rail case study.

Not a Sit-and-Listen Event

In the afternoon, delegates rolled up their sleeves in facilitated breakout sessions built around one question: What can we do in a year to make a real difference? Infection preventionists, EVS leaders, clinicians, contractors, and manufacturers worked side by side, and the energy in the room said it all.

“We wanted to create something more interactive than a traditional conference,” said Lauren Micallef, ISSA Oceania Manager, “where people could openly share experiences, ask questions and challenge thinking.”

Thank You to Virtual Manager

The Forum was made possible by our sponsor, Virtual Manager, a workforce management technology company founded in Queensland in 2014. Their commitment helped bring this important conversation to Australia.