Rate My Professor Claire Rickard

Professor Claire Rickard serves as Professor of Infection Prevention and Vascular Access in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland, a position held since 2021 in collaboration with Metro North Hospital and Health Service. A Registered Nurse with expertise in acute and critical care, she earned her Bachelor of Nursing, Postgraduate Diploma, and PhD from Queensland University of Technology in 2004, the latter examining the impact of intravascular administration set duration on bloodstream infections. Earlier in her career, Rickard coordinated pharmaceutical and investigator-initiated research in the ICU at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. She founded the Alliance for Vascular Access Teaching and Research (AVATAR) in 2007, which has expanded into a network of over 100 professionals across nursing, medicine, science, consumers, statistics, and health economics, conducting large-scale RCTs and providing education through workshops and postgraduate courses. Rickard is an NHMRC Leadership 2 Fellow and has received honors including induction into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2013 and election as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015.

Her research centers on preventing healthcare-associated infections and complications associated with central, peripheral, venous, and arterial catheters, with over 50 completed randomized controlled trials. Rickard has secured ongoing funding from the NHMRC and MRFF since 2008, supporting projects such as the IVCare adaptive platform trial and the One Million Global (OMG) peripheral intravenous catheter study, the largest vascular access study to date. Key publications feature high-impact works in The Lancet, including "Effect of infusion set replacement intervals on catheter-related bloodstream infections (RSVP): a randomised, controlled trial" (2021), "Dressings and securements for the prevention of peripheral intravenous catheter failure in adults (SAVE)" (2018), and "Routine versus clinically indicated replacement of peripheral intravenous catheters: a randomised controlled equivalence trial" (2012). With more than 300 publications, her contributions influence international guidelines and hospital practices worldwide. Rickard actively mentors nursing clinician-researchers, fostering their advancement to funded fellowships and leadership roles in healthcare improvement.