Zilber College of Public Health Seminar – Intersection of Infection Prevention and Public Health: The Shared Goals of Improving Community Health Outcomes

Presented by: 

Paula Pintar, MSN, RN, APRN-CNS, AL-CIP, FAPIC (she/her/hers)
Infection Preventionist, Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Prevention Program

In this presentation, Pintar will cover a brief background of the Wisconsin Department of Public Health and the evolution of the HAI Prevention Program, and the broad scope of services provided. She will also touch on the evolution of Infection Prevention. Then, we will examine why and how infection prevention is so important and explore the multiple intersections with public health focusing on improving community health outcomes.

About the presenter:
Paula Pintar, MSN, RN, APRN-CNS, AL-CIP, FAPIC has been in healthcare for more than two decades. She is a Regional Infection Preventionist with the Wisconsin Department of Public Health, Healthcare Associated Infection program. In this role she supports seven southeast counties as a consultant to LTHDs, congregate care settings, and acute care hospitals. In addition, she supports communicable disease outbreaks, conducts Legionella prevention water tours, and partners with the Legionellosis team on clinical investigations. Paula has come full circle in her career, working for many years in intensive care, PACU, and Home Health & Hospice prior going back to school to obtain her advanced practice nursing degree and transitioning into infection prevention. During this time, she not only worked in the front lines but lead infection prevention and quality departments in community, Veteran’s, and Academic health care centers. It is during this time she published her work in peer reviewed journals and during the COVID-19 pandemic conducted research on the experiences of the infection preventionist during the pandemic. She has presented multiple abstracts at state and national conferences focused on infection prevention and unique populations such as the MRSA outbreaks among recruits at a U.S. naval base. She has been active in her professional organization, APIC, at the state and national levels serving in leadership roles and is currently finishing up on her board of directors’ term for APIC national. She is a member of the Wisconsin Healthcare Engineers Association (WHEA) serving as their infection prevention education specialist. In her spare time, she spends time with her husband and adult children, her four-legged children that include a Springer Spaniel, two horses, a donkey, barn cats, and chickens.