The importance of innovation in surgical site infection. In conversation with Prof Karen Ousey and Claire Kilpatrick

Karen is Professor of Skin Integrity and Director for the Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention. She is also Visiting Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia and Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, a Florence Nightingale Scholar, chair of the International Wound Infection Institute, member of NHS National Wound Care Strategy, past academic editor for Wounds UK and is an editorial board member for the Journal of Wound Care. Karen led development of TVLC, the first UK wide Tissue Viability Service Competency framework. Karen's clinical background is in orthopaedics and tissue viability. She has worked in NHS hospitals in the North West of England and in London.

Claire is a graduate of the University of Glasgow (PGDipIC, MSc), founding director of S3 Global (small global health consultancy company), has been a consultant with the World Health Organization since 2008 (at global, regional and country level) and works as an infection prevention expert with a focus on development of guidance and implementation tools, particularly for surgical site infection, hand hygiene and associated topics. She has a wealth of experience in campaigning and is widely published in her specialist topics. She is currently a board director for the World Surgical Infection Society, having served in volunteer positions on a number of societies across high, middle and low income countries. Claire’s recent awards include best visual identity in health care, WHO 5 May hand hygiene campaign of 2016 (Transform Awards Europe, 2017), Runner up Hubert Tuor Innovation Academy Award (ICPIC, 2017), Paper of the year award (Journal of Research in Nursing, 2017).