Chapter 0512 AORN of The San Francisco Bay Area 2026 Annual Conference
CE EVENT: Utilizing a Healthcare Leadership Mindset to Advance Perioperative Evidence-Based Practices Across a Continuum
Date: September 26, 2026
Time: 9:15-10:30 a.m. PDT
Location: The Flamingo Resort and Spa, 2777 4th Street, Santa Rosa, CA
Please contact Chapter 0512 AORN of the San Francisco Bay Area to register.
Session Objectives:
Review the role of a leadership mindset in promoting evidence-based practices in perioperative care.
Develop strategies to integrate evidence-based practices into perioperative workflows.
Identify key leadership behaviors that drive the adoption of evidence-based practices.
Session Overview:
Perioperative practice change rarely fails for lack of evidence, it fails at the point where evidence meets budgets, competing priorities, and the people who have to carry it out. This program examines how a leadership mindset functions as the mechanism that moves perioperative evidence from publication into sustained bedside practice across the full continuum of surgical care, from preadmission through the operating room and into post-discharge recovery. Participants will explore how surgical services leaders, infection preventionists, perioperative nurses, and value analysis professionals can appraise emerging evidence, build the business and clinical case for adoption, align stakeholders across historically siloed departments, and hold gains through structured measurement and accountability. Attention is given to the environmental and engineering controls that support surgical site infection prevention, and to the leadership behaviors influence without authority, data fluency, and disciplined follow-through that determine whether an intervention becomes standard work or another abandoned initiative. Participants will leave with a practical framework for leading evidence-based change within their own perioperative settings.
Presenter: J. Hudson Garrett Jr., Ph.D., MSN, MPH, MBA, FNP-BC, IP-BC, PLNC, CFER, AS-BC, VA-BC, BC-MSLcert™, HACP-IC, CMRP, HACP, HACP-IC, HACP-PE LTC-CIP, CIC, NCEE, NRAEMT, MSL-BC, DICO-C, TR-C, CPPS, CCHR-S, CPHQ, CVAHP, CPXP, CDIPC, CPHRM, CHIPP-B, FACDONA, FAAPM, FAHVAP, FACHDM, FNAP, FAHVAP, FACHE, FSHEA, FIDSA
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine
University of Louisville School of Medicine
Dr. Hudson Garrett Jr.
Dr. Hudson Garrett is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He also co-founded the nonprofit the Infection Prevention Institute to help shepherd dissemination of best practices of infection prevention and control across the healthcare continuum of care globally. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Infection Prevention and Infection Control from the University of South Florida. He has completed the Johns Hopkins Fellows Program in Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control. He is also a Fellow in the Academy of National Associations of Directors of Nursing Administration and was selected as a Lifetime Member in the Association, which is the highest honor bestowed upon a member. He is also a Fellow, the American Academy of Project Management, and a Senior Fellow and Ambassador of the Management and Strategy Institute.
In 2019, he was inducted as a Distinguished Fellow and Practitioner in the National Academies of Practices. Dr. Garrett was recently selected in 2020 as 1 of 20 healthcare leaders globally to participate in the 2021 13-month Global Patient Safety Fellowship with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and is a graduate of the IHI Patient Safety Executive Development Program. In August of 2021, Dr. Garrett was awarded the prestigious Fellowship Designation by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America in recognition of his work in infectious diseases and infection prevention and control. In November 2021, he was awarded the Fellow Designation by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He holds graduate certificates in healthcare leadership from both Cornell and the University of Notre Dame. In 2023, Dr. Garrett was inducted as an inaugural Fellow by the Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals. He has earned the prestigious Lifetime Volunteer Leadership Award from the White House, which was bestowed upon him by President Joseph R. Biden. He is an appointed member of the advisory committee for the Design Thinking in Healthcare Program at Rutgers University. He is a frequent international lecturer in the areas of infectious diseases, healthcare associated infections, outbreak response and prevention and infection prevention and control.
He holds Board Certifications in Patient Safety, Healthcare Quality, Patient Experience, Vascular Access, Antibiotic Stewardship, Prehospital Emergency Medicine, Tactical Medicine, as a Designated Infection Control Officer, in Flexible Endoscope Reprocessing, Critical Care, as a Director of Nursing and Infection Prevention and Control in Post-Acute Care.
He has served on international and national organizational boards in the areas of environmental services, dental infection control, infection control, acute care infection control, post-acute care infection control, and vascular access. He has served on expert panels related to disinfection and sterilization with the United States Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, most notably serving on the FDA’s Panel and Working Group for Flexible Endoscope Reprocessing. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Healthcare Surfaces Institute. Dr. Garrett has lectured around the world and provided testimony to government and regulatory agencies on a variety of topics related to infectious diseases and infection prevention and control.
