Rebecca Leach, MPH, BSN, RN, CIC

Transplants are a crucial yet complex part of acute care. They involve various organs and tissues, necessitating robust infection prevention programs and compliance with strict regulatory standards.

Four years ago today, March 15, 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown began, and since then, the world has undergone significant changes. It has been a terrifying experience for everyone, especially for the infection prevention community, both within and outside of the health care sector. However, a crucial question remains unanswered: What has the infection prevention community learned from this pandemic, and where does it go from here?

Learn how infection preventionists (IPs) are key to ensuring food safety in healthcare facilities, addressing foodborne illness risks, and fostering a culture of prevention.

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are vital for maintaining air quality in health care facilities. They play a crucial role in reducing disease transmission by regulating air quality. Proper HVAC systems decrease risk through ventilation, filtration, and airflow control.

Antibiotics no longer work against many infections due to MDROs, causing more illness and death. What is antimicrobial resistance (AMR) doing to the environment?

What are the issues if sterile processing departments (SPDs) can't hire more qualified personnel?

Numerous pathogen outbreaks have been from the water in medical facilities. So what are the dangers, and what can infection preventionists do to prevent morbidities and mortalities from occurring?

How do infection preventionists navigate the many—and often contradictory—requirements that fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon them?

Infection preventionists and the equipment and cleansers they use gained a spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include both established and innovative materials.

The COVID-19 pandemic strengthened the relationship between infection preventionists and clinicians, but how can both parties ensure continued collaboration?

Now is the time for infection preventionists to harness the current attention to biopreparedness and use the momentum to build the foundations for strong local programs that can be sustained through future waves of competing priorities.

IPs know the reliable sources and are familiar with reading scientific studies and being able to translate those findings to staff in an understandable way.

All the ancillary and support staff, including infection preventionists, have been called upon to help support the work of the frontline caregivers and are subject to the same stressors and potential for burnout.

How will the COVID vaccine be handled at each facility? Wil it be mandatory? Will it be given annually? Will it be a condition of employment? These are all questions that will need to be addressed.

COVID-19 possibly hindered the prevention of healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) because infection preventionists have less time to do rounding and focus on the elements that contribute to HAIs.

One example of a way that IPs can collaborate with other departments to implement a vaccination program is to work with occupational health and emergency response departments to have a mass vaccination drill.

Many factors make the isolation precautions for diseases like COVID-19 more complex than typical droplet or airborne definitions.

To enact social change such as better hand hygiene, only about 25% of a group needs to adopt the change and move the rest of the group forward.

Just-in-time (JIT) fit testing allows a healthcare organization to offer evaluation, training, and fitting of HCPs during rapid intervals, as needed, based on specific patient care assignments. 

Infectoin preventionists's can bring their perspective and strengths to the antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) program and offer ways to bring the work to the bedside and engage the partnerships that already exist to make AMS programs successful.

New technologies have emerged in EVS practices that infection preventionists can help review before a facility decides to implement.

Rebecca Leach, RN, BSN, MPH, CIC, speaks to Infection Control Today about dealing with respiratory illnesses during the flu season.