Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC, ICT's Editorial Advisory Member

Introducing the Infection Control Today's (ICT's) Editorial Board members—a diverse group of professionals dedicated to advancing infection prevention and control practices. This series highlights each member's unique expertise and contributions to the field.

From groundbreaking research to innovative strategies, these experts are at the forefront of enhancing health care safety. Join us as we learn their insights, experiences, and visions for the future, providing valuable knowledge and inspiration to elevate infection control protocols.

This installment is from Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC, System Program Manager of Ambulatory Infection Prevention for CHRISTUS Health, Irving TX.

Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC

My name is Shannon Simmons. I am the program manager of ambulatory infection prevention, and my journey as an infection preventionist began in the microbiology lab. I have always been fascinated by microorganisms and everything they can do in the unseen world of microorganisms. I spent some time as a microbiologist and wanted to expand my knowledge. Getting a master's degree in public health exposed me to different options, and infection prevention sparked my interest. It fused my love for public health and bringing everyone together, structures, standards, and policies. It's not that cool, but it's something that I have an interest in, and I am also bringing in the side of microbiology.

That is where I started, and I got an opportunity to join a very big team of infection preventionists at a large county hospital. So, I got the best experience coming into infection prevention by being a part of that large team because we had nurses and other people who had come from laboratory backgrounds. These people had come from working in health departments. It was a very well-rounded team. Having such a large hospital and seeing so many things, I got the best experience of everything possible. I wish every new infection preventionist could go into a large hospital with a large team and learn from many people how to make infection prevention work for everyone; infection prevention is everyone's responsibility.

Having those different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences molded my career in infection prevention, the kind of things that I didn't think about because I don't have a nursing background; I was able to relate more to speaking with my colleagues and even the coming out of the bedside world, having a different, more epidemiological look at things, and understanding how the microorganism itself is even working to cause these issues that are happening that we physically see with people or in environments. This really brings everything together.

I had the opportunity to be a director of infection prevention during COVID-19. Making those decisions, understanding what's happening, and being that subject matter expert at a time when we were all learning on the fly, so [I have] had a very interesting infection prevention career. Now, taking on the role of focusing primarily on ambulatory care settings also leads me to be more creative with a lot of information because infection prevention has primarily been focused on hospital settings.

Now that much more health care is taking place outside of hospital settings, we realize what that looks like in our clinics and ambulatory surgery centers and how we can still provide the best care. Even though these patients aren't there, as long as they are in hospitals, for the most part, it's still a place where we should be practicing those infection prevention guidelines. Some things may need to be tweaked to meet the needs of those areas.

I like this role of working with smaller spaces that don't necessarily have an infection control practitioner but still need that assistance to ensure they are doing what is best for the patients and the staff. Trends that I am seeing are the emergence of what artificial intelligence (AI) can do in spaces, and it's so new and interesting that even I am trying to understand better options and how to translate those into our ambulatory settings.

[For topics ICT should cover in the next year], I have noticed nothing specific…[except AI] on the cusp of being a big phenomenon. But there's a lot of conversation about how we can use AI in health care in general. So, I'm very interested and excited to see what that looks like in the infection prevention world.

APIC is making a big push for this and will have a conference soon so we can all learn more and have better conversations. Infection prevention is a multidisciplinary part of health care, and just having that extra helps with AI. I'm very excited to see how that can help everyone.

Manufacturer instructions for use… is the hot topic everywhere. The more we talk about it, the closer we're getting to something that works for everyone. I'm very happy with the progress we're making in that area. It seems like such a simple and easy concept. The people who made it tell us how to use it, but there must be some universal language, everyone understanding everyone's role when it comes to not only using a product but also cleaning, sterilizing, and disinfecting it. I'm very interested to see more and hear more about how we can make instructions for use relatable, understandable, and universal in some way because it is such an important aspect of infection prevention.