By Cecilia Nasmith
The December PACE talk – to be held at Northumberland Hills Hospital Dec. 18 at 5:30 p.m. - explores a timely topic: Don't Be A Vector! How To Prevent Spreading Infections – and Getting Them.
Dr. Daniel Ricciuto is the speaker, an internal-medicine and infectious-disease specialist who practices at Lakeridge Health (where he is Chief and Medical Director of Quality and Patient Experience and the Physician Lead for Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship, as well as co-chair of the Public Health Ontario Antimicrobial Stewardship Advisory Committee.
Dr. Ricciuto consults regularly at NHH, performing weekly rounds via Ontario Telemedicine Network and working closely with NHH's pharmacy team to provide input on antimicrobial stewardship.
Areas of research he has participated in over his career include efforts to reduce rates of hospital-acquired infections (like C. difficile), novel technologies to improve hand hygiene and the microbiome and biomarkers in sepsis.
His PACE conversation will share ways we can all prevent spreading and getting infections.
The Northumberland PACE talks are free monthly public-education sessions on a broad range of health-and-wellness topics. The series consistently draws large groups of community members who bring a range of questions and perspectives to the experience.
Talks are scheduled at 5:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month, alternating locations between NHH (1000 DePalma Dr., Cobourg) and the Community Health Centres of Northumberland (99 Toronto Rd., Port Hope). The hour-long sessions consist of a 30-minute talk, a 20-minute question-and-answer period, and a 10-minute moderator summary.
The session on infection control is a timely one, and everyone is encouraged to bring questions (and to share their suggestions and experiences) in what is expected to be another lively discussion.
PACE stands for Personalized Assessment And Change, and the format is based on TED talks. They began when NHH chief of staff Dr. Mukesh Bhargava began arranging public-information sessions on the questions that his patients were posing to him most often.
It has grown into a far-reaching project that involves a wide variety of partners, including NHH, the Health Centres, the Northumberland Family Health Team, IMCare internal-medicine specialists, the NHH Foundation, and local patients and caregivers. The Film and Television Production program at Loyalist College has joined the team to support audio and video recording and distribution.
For all sessions, pre-registration is required to manage room capacity. You can register for Dr. Ricciuto's presentation at www.pacetalks.com – where you'll find a listing of the upcoming speakers and topic line-up along with video highlights from last season's talks (as well as video and audio recordings from PACE talks delivered earlier this season).
Looking ahead, Dr. Mark Essak will give the Jan. 15 presentation Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) – Where Are We in 2020? Registration for this session will open the week of Dec. 16.
