Salem Township Hospital is celebrating National Infection Prevention Week October 15-21. When planning all the events for this week at the hospital they turned to their mission statement for guidance:
“Our commitment is to provide excellence in health care and promote wellness for our community through compassionate care, personalized service, and teamwork.”
After looking at this they knew reaching out to the community was as important as reaching out to their staff and patients. To kick off Infection Prevention week at the hospital, it was decided they would go speak to some of the children attending kindergarten in the Salem Community High School feeder schools the week before the event. They will be speaking with over 150 children.
Janelle Wilkerson, the hospital’s infection prevention nurse, will be presenting a “Superhero in Healthy Habits” program where each student will be presented with a certificate and a gift bag from the hospital. Each student will also be asked to draw their very own unique germ and give it a creative name. All the germs will then be displayed at the hospital during the IP week events. Both staff and visitors will vote. The student who creates the most creative, unique germ will win an ice cream party for their classroom.
Hospital representatives already had an opportunity to visit Hawthorn and said they had an amazing time. The children seemed to really enjoy the presentation and loved the idea of getting to enter a drawing contest and possibly have an ice cream party for their class.
“I am so blessed to work for a health care facility where leadership supports infection prevention best practices, allowing me to venture out into the community and reach our youngsters to help ensure healthy habits and infection prevention practices are instilled at a very young age,” stated Janelle Wilkerson.
Another community outreach program will also be held on Oct. 17. The hospital’s outpatient department is holding a flu clinic from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on October 17 and is open to everyone in the community.
Pictured above is Janelle Wilkerson conducting a “Superhero in Healthy Habits” program.
