{"id":3392,"date":"2021-10-07T09:21:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T13:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/?p=3392"},"modified":"2021-10-18T10:02:59","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T14:02:59","slug":"willis-named-friend-of-epidemiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/2021\/10\/willis-named-friend-of-epidemiology\/","title":{"rendered":"Willis named Friend of Epidemiology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2018, UNC Medical Center Infection Prevention has bestowed Friends of Epidemiology<\/em> awards to honor exceptional UNC Health Care employees in other departments. Awardees are outstanding in their work for their department and integral to the success of Infection Prevention.<\/p>\n

\"bio
Willis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each year, Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program team members have been among those recognized. At the awards ceremony today, Zach Willis<\/a>, MD, MPH\u00a0 received a 2021 certificate of recognition for his continuing leadership of the UNC Children\u2019s Hospital central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI<\/a>) workgroup. Other 2021 Awardees include Kevin Alby, PhD; Turkeisha Brown, MSN, RN; Tracy Carroll, MSN, RN; Loc Culp, BSN, RN; and Joe Eron, MD.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Willis is a Friend of Epidemiology in so many ways,\u201d said Emily Sickbert-Bennett, PhD, Director of UNC Medical Center Infection Prevention.\u00a0 \u201cSince he became the physician leader of the CLABSI workgroup several years ago, Dr. Willis shepherded CLABSI prevention initiatives throughout the Children\u2019s Hospital.\u00a0 He regularly participates in UNC Children\u2019s Hospital CLABSI deep dives with nursing and physician leadership.\u201d CLABSI is one type of healthcare-associated infection that resulted in 18,000 deaths across the US in 2019.<\/p>\n

Willis\u2019 participation led to increased physician involvement and multi-disciplinary discussions about CLABSI prevention.\u00a0 In addition to planning and overseeing the monthly Children\u2019s CLABSI workgroup meetings, Willis was a co-sponsor on the Children\u2019s \u201cPurple Belt\u201d Quality Improvement project focused on nursing interventions to improve chlorhexidine treatments (an infection prevention strategy) during the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Willis balanced competing priorities\u2014the ongoing pandemic and nursing staff shortages–to keep CLABSI initiatives and infection prevention at the forefront for everyone involved,\u201d Sickbert-Bennett shared.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CASP teammates recognized previously: <\/em><\/p>\n

2020: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Melissa Miller<\/a>, PhD, D(ABMM), F(AAM) (Clinical Microbiology)<\/strong><\/p>\n

2019: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lindsay Daniels<\/a>, PharmD, MPH (CASP Pharmacy Lead) <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ashley Marx<\/a>, PharmD (CASP Pharmacy) <\/strong><\/p>\n

2018: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Thomas Belhorn<\/a>, MD, PhD (Pediatric Infectious Diseases) <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a list of all Friends of Epidemiology awardees past and present, visit https:\/\/news.unchealthcare.org\/2021\/10\/congratulations-to-our-2021-friends-of-epidemiology\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since 2018, UNC Medical Center Infection Prevention has bestowed Friends of Epidemiology awards to honor exceptional UNC Health Care employees in other departments. Awardees are outstanding in their work for their department and integral to the success of Infection Prevention. Each year, Carolina Antimicrobial Stewardship Program team members have been among those recognized. At the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103756,"featured_media":3393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/563\/2021\/10\/Zach-Willis.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/563\/2021\/10\/Zach-Willis-300x300.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/563\/2021\/10\/Zach-Willis-768x768.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/563\/2021\/10\/Zach-Willis.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/563\/2021\/10\/Zach-Willis-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Zach Willis in front of banner","category_details":[{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/category\/news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103756"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/casp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}