2026 Outbreak Ready: Managing Respiratory Illnesses & Norovirus in Healthcare

Kathy Auten, RN, MSN, CIC is Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Children’s Mercy – Kansas City, located in Kansas City, Missouri. Ms. Auten holds a Master of Nursing from Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. She has infection prevention experience in rural and community acute care, ambulatory, behavioral health, and academic medical centers in both adult and pediatric populations. Ms. Auten has served APIC at a national level by designing education programs for IPs on construction; surveillance; prevention of infections in the operating room; cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization. She completed a quality improvement project with an emphasis on reducing HAIs through leadership rounds and received the 2021 New Investigator Abstract Award from APIC. She has leveraged her experience on the APIC Education Committee to actively participate in developing and refining educational content to guide the development from novice to expert IP and selected as lead for the 2022 Cleaning Disinfection and Sterilization Conference subcommittee. Ms. Auten is currently participating as a subject matter expert for a grant-funded research project which entails developing infection prevention training for Missouri schools and authoring a chapter in the APIC text.

Barbara A. Smith, RN, BSN, MPA, CIC, FAPIC is the principal of BA Smith Consulting, LLC which provides infection prevention support to ambulatory surgery, endoscopy and dialysis centers in the New York metropolitan area. She has also worked with IPRO, a quality improvement organization, to provide on-site visits to long term care facilities

She was an infection preventionist at the Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West campuses in New York City where she also served as the infection prevention consultant for Mount Sinai International. Ms. Smith has provided infection prevention consultation to the Kuwait Ministry of Health.

As an APIC consultant, Ms. Smith has trained staff at major New York City hospitals on personal protective equipment. Currently she is working with other APIC consultants to update the APIC’s EPI intensive curriculum. She served on the Board of Director for the national Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology. She is a member of APIC’s Emerging Infectious Disease Task Force and a clinical editor of the APIC Text Online.

A graduate of Hunter College and New York University, she served on the Advisory Board of Medical Reserve Corps of New York City and the American Council for St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo. She served on the clinical advisory board of COVID SMART and Healthcare Laundry Accreditation Council.