Infection Control Matters

Can something as routine as removing a wound dressing release microorganisms into the surrounding air?

In this episode of Infection Control Matters, Martin and Brett explore a paper by Mellon and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Infection Control, investigating airborne microbial contamination during wound care in a burns intensive care unit.

Using conventional microbiological methods alongside shotgun metagenomic sequencing, the researchers examined air and skin samples over three days from a patient with extensive burns covering 70% of their total body surface area.

The findings are fascinating. HSV-1 DNA was detected in...

The central theme of this episode is that some of the most valuable lessons in healthcare leadership can be found on the football pitch. Drawing on his paper, Pitch Perfect: Healthcare Leadership Lessons from Lionel Messi and the World Cup, infectious diseases physician and healthcare epidemiologist Professor Gonzalo Bearman joins Martin Kiernan to explore what the beautiful game can teach us about leading infection prevention and control teams.

From Lionel Messi’s ability to conserve energy, read the game and deliver at the right moment, to Pep Guardiola’s philosophy that great leaders make others better, we disc...

In this episode, Martin Kiernan talks with Dr Alexandra Peters, President of Clean Hospitals, ahead of the annual Clean Hospitals Day on 20 October.

They discuss this year’s theme of empowerment—why environmental services staff should be recognised as frontline healthcare workers, and why training, professionalisation and giving them a voice matter for patient safety. Alexandra describes how training, certification and career progression are used to professionalise environmental services in Switzerland, and why giving staff knowledge isn't enough if they aren't also given a voice. The conversation asks a fundamental question: should an environmental services worker have the...

In this episode, Phil Russo and Brett Mitchell are joined by Dr Shalini Elangovan from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore to discuss her global study exploring how IPC professionals make decisions.

Using a discrete choice experiment, Shalini and colleagues examined the trade-offs people make between clinical evidence, cost-effectiveness, implementation time and the additional workload an intervention creates.

What actually makes an IPC professional say “yes” to an intervention? The study found that cost-effectiveness was the most important attribute overall, but also identified striking differences between “evidence seekers” and “efficiency seekers,” particularly between respondents from lower/middle- and...

In this episode of Infection Control Matters, Martin Kiernan talks to Brett Mitchell about a new review of RCTs in IPC over the past two decades. The review identified 239 trials, with a striking increase in recent years—but the research is concentrated in a relatively small number of areas. We also explore a much bigger issue: what happens to new evidence once it has been published? If guidelines remain unchanged while new RCTs accumulate, are we really translating research into practice?

We discuss what is driving this growth, where the important evidence gaps remain, and whether IPC gu...

In this episode, Brett and Martin discuss a cluster RCT from the Journal of Hospital Infection that took a very different approach. The researchers used social network analysis to identify the people operating room nurses naturally turned to for advice and support. Six of these informal influencers were then trained as peer champions—not as auditors or compliance police, but as positive role models who could encourage better practice through their existing relationships.

 Over 12 months, hand hygiene compliance increased from 41.8% to 79.2% in the intervention group, compared with an increase from 42.6% to 59.3% with standard education. The study also rep...

In this episode of Infection Control Matters, Brett and Martin talk to Professor Tom Riley about why we need to look well beyond the hospital to understand where Clostridioides difficile comes from.

Tom discusses the growing importance of C. difficile as a community-acquired infection and explains how antimicrobial use in agriculture, animals, animal faeces, food and the environment may all form part of the transmission pathway. We explore some findings from his research, including C. difficile contamination of potatoes and domestic kitchens.

We also discuss the challenges of controlling highly persistent spores in the environment...

Artificial intelligence has enormous potential in healthcare, but where can it genuinely improve infection prevention without replacing clinical judgement? In this episode, Phil Russo and Martin Kiernan are joined by Professor Judith Tanner (University of Nottingham) and Melissa Rochon (Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust) to discuss a recent paper about the WISDOM study, a randomised feasibility trial evaluating AI-assisted digital surveillance for surgical wounds after hospital discharge.

Following on from a previous podcast in which patients submit wound photographs from home (https://infectioncontrolmatters.podbean.com/e/surgical-site-infection-surveillance-by-patient-generated-images/), this paper describes how AI can prioritise images...

Candidozyma auris has become one of the greatest environmental challenges facing infection prevention teams. Its ability to survive on surfaces, form resilient biofilms and spread within healthcare settings has raised important questions about whether our current cleaning and disinfection practices are enough.

In this episode, Martin and Brett are joined by Aristotelis Papadimitriou from Athens to discuss his newly published systematic review on environmental decontamination of Candidozyma auris. They explore which disinfectants are the most effective, why biofilms change everything, the importance of fungal clades, and the significant gap between laboratory efficacy studies and the realities of...

The tables are turned in this episode. Prof Trisha Peel and Dr Sally Havers guest host this podcast and interview Brett Mitchell, Nicole White and Martin Kiernan about their recent publication in Lancet Infectious Disease.

The publication showcases results from a recent multi-centre RCT demonstrating the benefit of improving oral care in reducing the risk of non-ventilator associated pneumonia (NV-HAP). The authors are probed about why they did the study, key findings, implementation and other aspects not always published in peer reviewed journals.

White NM, Russo PL, Matterson G, Browne K, Cheng AC, Kiernan...

In the second ESCMID Global 2026 poster tour episode, Brett and Martin found three different and thought-provoking posters that highlight the importance of people, partnerships and communication in advancing infection prevention and control.

We begin by talking to Dr Aline Wolfensberger from Zurich about a Swiss project that used human-centred design and co-production to develop practical tools that engage patients and relatives in the prevention of non-ventilator hospital-acquired pneumonia. Through a process of interviews, observations and co-design workshops, the team created innovative, low-cost solutions to promote oral care and mobilisation, demonstrating how patients and families can become active...

In the first of two special episodes recorded live from the poster hall at ESCMID Global 2026 in Munich, Brett and Martin swap the lecture theatre for the exhibition floor as they explore some of the most interesting infection prevention and antimicrobial resistance research on display.

In this episode we discuss the following posters. Links to copies of the posters are provided.

In this episode, Brett and Martin talked to Dr Nico Tom Mutters about the papers he selected in the always popular 'Year in Infection Control' session at ESCMID Global 2026. Nico is Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at Bonn University Hospital and also Chair of EUCIC (European Committee on Infection Control). It is always fascinating to see which papers are selected in these sessions and we discussed a few papers that he selected from the preceding 12 months, a list of which follow.

SuDDICU Investigators for the Australia New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials...

In this episode, Brett and Martin reflect on the IPC components a major conference. Recorded after our visit to ESCMID Global 2026 held in Munich, Germany in April, this episode brings together key insights and conversations from across the first three days of the meeting. We reflect on emerging evidence, practical challenges, and the real-world implications for infection prevention and control, with a focus on what genuinely shifts practice rather than what simply looks good on paper. As always, the aim is to translate complex science into usable ideas for clinicians, infection preventionists, and anyone working to reduce harm from...

In this episode, recorded live from Interclean in Amsterdam, Brett and Martin highlight the contibution of Clean Hospitals to healthcare hygiene and reflect on the contrast between healthcare cleaning and the wider cleaning industry. While the scale, innovation, and investment in cleaning technology are impressive, much of it is not designed with healthcare realities in mind. We discuss why cleaning in hospitals is fundamentally different — shaped by interruptions, human behaviour, complex environments, and higher-risk pathogens.

Key links

www.cleanhospitals.com

Paper referred to:

Xie, A., C. Rock, Y.-J. Hsu, P. Os...

How well do we really measure bloodstream infections and could it be routinely automated?

In this episode, Brett and Martin look at two papers on automated hospital-onset bacteraemia (HOB) surveillance, one a retrospective review in a single hospital in Berlin (Rüther et al) and a national UK study (Cregan, Oxford and UKHSA) exploring whether surveillance could move from local, manual processes to a fully automated national system, which was spectacularly accurate.

Ruther, F. D., M. Behnke, L. A. Pena Diaz, F. Schwab, C. Geffers and S. J. S. Aghdassi (2026). "Advancing hospital-onset bacteraemia su...

In this episode, Martin and Brett talk about what is a high risk and what is a high touch surface. Are they the same? The discussion is based on the following paper:

Zheng et al (2025). “High-touch” surfaces are not always “high-risk” surfaces in ICU environment. Journal of hospital infection. 

https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(26)00079-4/fulltext

Back in July 2022 when the world was opening up again Brett, Phil and Martin were all in Melbourne and met up for a chat. The topic was 'Are we experts', however due to incompetence (Martin) the recording was terrible and his rather poor editing skills (learnt entirely by watching YouTube videos from Mike Russell) didn't help much. Now however by using Adobe AI voice enhancement it has been possible to rescuscitate the recording, and we felt that it was worth a reissue.

In this podcast, Phil and Brett speak with Dr Lyn-Li Lim from VICNISS (Victorian Healthcare Associated Infection Surveillance System)in Australia. Dr Lim and colleagues recently explored the infection prevention and control resourcing levels in 113 facilities, including FTE per 100 beds. This podcast explores the differences in resourcing for different categories of hospitals.

A link to the publication is here. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019665532500570X 

In this episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Sarah Fieldhouse, Associate Professor of Forensic Science and Dr Emmanuel Babafemi, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences both of the University of Staffordshire, UK. We discuss a recent paper looking at hospital cleanliness. Using forensic light, the study uncovered invisible contamination on surfaces that looked clean to the naked eye. We discuss what fluorescence reveals, what ATP misses, and how this approach could reshape environmental monitoring in healthcare.

The open access paper is available here:
Fieldhouse S, Bastaki BB, Ledgerton A, Clarke P, Lewis T. Assessing the effectiveness of...

In this episode, Martin talks to Dr Diane Ashiru-Oredope and colleagues at the UKHSA (UK Health Security Agency) about the 2025 ESPAUR report, focusing on what the latest data mean for clinicians, infection prevention teams, and health system leaders. We explore what the latest data reveal about antimicrobial resistance and prescribing trends in England, including changes in resistance patterns among major bacterial pathogens and what this means for patient safety and clinical outcomes.

We discuss what’s improving, where challenges remain, and how infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship teams can use national surveillance data to drive meaningful local act...

This is our traditional end of year Christmas special. In this episode we consider highlights from year and have a bit of fun - including a stakeout in London.

We talk about our views on the most significant systematic review, our favourite presentation/poster, RCTs would like to see and predictions for 2026.

In this episode, Martin talks to Dr Jon Otter, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, UK. We examine two complementary pieces of work that provide further insight into Candidozyma auris transmission in acute hospitals. The first demonstrates, for the first time in the UK, that ward-level wastewater reliably mirrors patient colonisation and can reveal genetically related outbreak strains using culture and PCR. The second, a case–control study, identifies clinical and environmental risk factors that shape colonisation, highlighting the significance of shared patient equipment.

The paper can be found he...

In this episode, Martin speaks with Helen Dunn, Consultant Nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital, a Children's Hospital in London, UK. Helen is the lead author of a recent study published in the Journal of Infection Prevention, exploring whether structured ward rounds can be used as an innovative method for delivering Infection Prevention and Control education directly in the clinical environment. This work implemented a bedside ward-round model with Band 6 nurses in a paediatric cardiac high-dependency unit, using a structured assessment tool to prompt real-time, patient-focused discussions. The findings highlight that this approach created frequent education opportunities, strengthened relationships...

In this episode, Martin spoke to the authors of two compelling posters showcased at the 2025 Infection Prevention Society Conference in Brighton, each discussing practical, data-driven approaches to reducing avoidable harm. Download the posters and have a listen to two authors with a passion for their projects.

First, Catherine Lemsalu, a Dental Nurse from the IPC Team at University Hospital Plymouth discusses her quality-improvement work on an acute stroke ward, demonstrating how structured mouth-care assessment, targeted staff education, and consistent daily oral care contributed to reductions in non-ventilated hospital-acquired pneumonia and Clostridioides difficile infections. Her poster highlights how...

In this episode, Brett and Martin discuss a few posters that interested them from recent major infection prevention conferences.

Brett was at the ICPIC Conference in Geneva and found plenty of interest in the Innovation academy. 

Martin was on his travels as well and recorded a few discussions with poster presenters at the 2025 Infection Prevention So...

In this episode, Martin Kiernan hosts a panel discussion at the 2026 Infection Prevention Society Conference in Brighton, United Kingdom.

The Panel comprised:

In this podcast, Brett and Phil have a chat with Professor David Weber on the sidelines of the ICPIC conference in Geneva. We chat about the funding cuts for the WHO and the US CDC, including the disbandment of HICPAC - and what this means for IPC. We discuss what is being done and what needs to happen to fill the void and to ensure contemporary IPC evidence and guidelines are available.

Prof Weber, a distinguished leader in infection prevention and healthcare epidemiology, is the current President of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SH...

In this episode Martin talks to Squadron Leader Tez Cooling and Flight Lieutenant Emma Foley about their work in the Royal Air Force (RAF) retrieval service for patients with known and suspected High Consequence Infectious Disease who are transferred to specialist units in the UK.

The team discuss how the Air Transportable Isolator (ATI) is used in order to safely carry out repatriations in a timely manner and the training that is required to operate suct a specialist service.

In this 2-segment episode, Brett, Phil and Martin firstly mull over a nurse-led, bottom up (pun intended) quality improvement project that aimed to reduce CAUTI in a neonatal ICU in Georgia, USA. Having discussed how great it is to see this type of work written up, Martin then spoke to Katie Cabral the lead author for more insights and to find out if the innovation has been sustained.

Cabral K, Anderson V, Allen I, Hoskins D, Byers K, Gettis M. Entering a No Diaper Zone: Rethinking Prevention of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection. Critical care nurse 2025;45(4):21...

In this episode, Brett, Phil and Martin discuss a recent paper from Freya Bull and colleagues, who undertook a modelling exercise to determine what factors determine the colonisation process for long and short-term urinary catheters. It turns out that different factors are in play here and that strategies for CAUTI prevention miht be different for each.

You can read the paper here:

Bull F, Tavaddod S, Bommer N, Perry M, Brackley CA, Allen RJ. Different factors control long-term versus short-term outcomes for bacterial colonisation of a urinary catheter. Nat Commun 2025;16(1):3940. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025...

In this episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Drs Priya Nori and Gonzalo Bearman. Priya is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Orthopedic Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA. Gonzalo is Chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Chief Quality and Safety Officer for Research at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, USA.

We chat about a recent book entitled "Courageous Leadership in Infectious Diseases and Public Health During Challenging Times" that they edited, in which they conducted in-depth interviews with luminaries whose careers span multiple...

In this episode, Martin Kiernan talks to Dr Gabriel Birgand, Clinical Co-ordinator of EUCIC (European Committee on Infection Control) which is part of ESCMID Global (European Society for Clinical Microbilogy and Infectious Dieseases). Gabriel is the lead of the Regional Center for Infection Prevention and Control (Pays de la Loire region), Nantes University Hospital and also Head of the National Center for Surveillance and Prevention of AMR (antimicrobial resistance) and HAI (healthcare associated infections) in primary care and nursing homes.

EUCIC has recently published a set of slides that have reviewed recent papers relevant to SSI prevention...

In this episode, Brett reviews a few posters from the Hong Kong Infection Control Nurses Association conference.  Topics include fit testing, bloodstream infection surveillance and environmental cleaning. 

The poster discussed in the podcast can be viewed and downloaded here. 

In this episode recorded in an Irish Bar in Nelson (NZ), Brett and Martin dive headfirst into the swirling world of toilet aerosols, airborne pathogens, and potential mitigations.

We begin with a older study by Scott, Bloomfield, and Barlow examining the effectiveness of disinfection in real-world settings and how this depends heavily on practical application and behavioural compliance. Then we move to move to a recent contribution by Higham and colleagues, who shift the focus from surface disinfection to airborne exposure. Their paper presents a quantitative microbial risk assessment framework that models aerosolised viral particles generated by...

In this episode, Brett, Phil and Martin discuss a recent paper from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) that examined the timeliness of data points that could be used for a centrally implemented, automated HCAI surveillance system in England, as a potential alternative to the
24 current locally-implemented system. The aim was to examine the potential for a national, automated surveillance system that could reduce the burden of the existing labour-intensive process for mandatory surveillance in England although the results were felt to be generalisable.

Link to the paper we discuss:
Quan TP, Eyre DW, Shadwell...

In this episode, we discuss the purpose of infection control matters and why we started the podcast. Recorded 1500 days after we started the podcast, Brett, Phil and Martin reflect on the podcast to date.

For new listeners, is also a chance to learn more about our approach to the podcast and how to make the most of our website.

In this episode, we explore the crucial disconnect between national infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines and the local policies implemented in residential aged care (RAC) facilities. Brett and Martin talk to Dr Sanne Peters and Dr Kirsty Buising about their recent paper that reports on their recent analysis using the AACTT (Action, Actor, Context, Target, Time) behavioural framework, which reveals a lack of alignment and specificity in many local IPC documents.

We discuss:

Why well-intentioned policies often fail to drive behaviour

The implications of vague IPC statements in high-risk environments

...

In this episode Martin talks to Dr Andy Borman, (Acting Head and Consultant Clinical Scientist, UKHSA National UK Mycology Reference Lab. also Hon Professor of Medical Mycology, MRC CMM, University of Exeter), Dr Colin Brown (Deputy Director of Emerging and Epidemic Infections at UK Health Security Agency; Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases & Medical Microbiology at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust) and Dr Mariyam Mirfenderesky (Consultant in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases North Middlesex and RF (AMS Lead) and UKHSA on HCAI). The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is the national organisation in the United Kingdom responsible for protecting p...

In this episode of Infection Control Matters, we explore the potential of AI tools to support education and professional dialogue in infection prevention and control.

We used NotebookLM, an experimental tool from Google designed to help users interact with their documents in new ways—summarising, clarifying, and even generating structured discussions based on uploaded content. Using research and guidance documents, we demonstrate how NotebookLM can be used to create a voice-generated conversation on key themes in IPC.

The paper that we uploaded was the recently published cost-effectiveness research that relates to the CLEEN study that we...