Life Long Learning: The Key to Sustained Infection Prevention Improvement

The past two decades have been characterised by an explosion of infection prevention knowledge. Catalysts for this explosion have included:
• increased government infection prevention agenda setting;
• national and global expansion of professional bodies dedicated solely to reducing infection;
• new infectious diseases like SARS;
• technological innovations spearheaded by device manufacturers;
• the addition of thousands of research studies to our evidence base;
• the emergence of microbiological challenges such as multiple resistant organisms;
• the formation of collegiate partnerships with peers pursuing similar patient safety improvement in alternate but related specialty areas; and
• the recruitment of new partners in prevention including the general public, patients and their families.