Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC)

Infection Control Today® talks to Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC, about her work with the APIC's Cleaning, Disinfection, Sterilization Conference and her position as an ambulatory infection preventionist.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending December 15, 2022.

Hebah Ibrahim Al Zamel, MSN, CIC, CPHQ, currently living in Dubai discusses becoming a member of the APIC CDS Education Committee and what infection prevention is like in Dubai.

Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology’s (APIC’s) CDS Conference is virtual this year, and the topics are environmental hygiene and sterile processing.

A carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) cluster was identified and stopped because of due diligence of the infection preventionists at an acute care facility in Louisiana.

The strength of The Association for Professionals and Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is the volunteer members and the critical work they perform to assist both novice and veteran IPs.

The 50-year-old Association for Professionals and Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) gives many tools to aid infection preventionists at any stage of their career with education, networking, and an annual conference.

In all areas, infection preventionists took on more responsibilities and expanded the ones they already had, including staff education and employee health.

Despite the initial reluctance for a urology team to work with infection preventionists, the collaboration is beneficial for both specialties.

They should be partners making each other and their patients safe through communication, education, and action plans.

If the policies are not consistently updated, they are “just a piece of paper shoved in a logbook that is not going to effectively improve reprocessing…of ultrasound probes,” said Lisa Waldowski, DNP, RN, CIC.

Eye devices often are not cleaned nor sterilized as they should be according to manufacturer’s instructions for use, which leads to poorer patient outcomes.

Infection preventionists should take an active role supporting ambulatory partners to help them follow infection prevention and control practices.

Investigators look for and find MRSA and C difficil widespread on floors, especially in patient rooms, and MRSA inside NICU isolette beds.

An IP can use their expertise to make decisions that will lead to cost savings and improved design flow.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending June 17.

The encouraging method used in the facility to raise the percentages was the answer to creating a positive response from the team.

Collaboration of a team from Inova Health with La Forma Medical developed an isolation gown that was cooler, better fitting, and more environmentally-friendly than disposables.

The wearable wristband works with location sensors throughout the hospital to track HH and HCW behavior, and then pairs with an app that analyzes individual performance.

One key opinion leader speaks of infection prevention challenges with prone patients and benefits of centralized surveillance systems in 2 separate presentations at the APIC 2022 annual conference.

“Of all the SSIs we culled over that 3 years, about 42% of them required a wound class change by an infection preventionist,” Emily Grohs, MPH, CIC, tells ICT®.

The infection preventionist’s role extends far beyond simply surveillance activities and into an integrated member of design and operations.

The bioburden disparities among the various locations sampled could mean HCWs are not practicing proper hand hygiene before using or moving WOWs. It could also reflect the number of touches or a discrepancy in cleaning methods.

Health care worker hand hygiene compliance ticked up during COVID, but levels remain low nationwide. A 3-hospital network in Illinois wanted to know why.

The IP’s role in vaccine compliance has traditionally centered on influenza shots, but that all changed with SARS-CoV-2.

Trained observers at a pediatric hospital in south Texas relied on the app for hand hygiene observation collections between June 18 and November 30, 2021, and logged a 140% increase in observations collected.

Crystal Heishman, MBA, MSN, RN, ONC, CIC: “You don’t ever want to go into a sterilization department and say, ‘You’re doing this wrong’. Because they’re the subject matter experts. You want to learn. You want to learn the process. You want to work together because it makes a stronger partnership.”

The primary organization representing the infection preventionists who often coordinate vaccination efforts at hospitals says that COVID-19 vaccines should be mandatory.

Tania Bubb, PhD, RN, CIC: “I think there are many heroes to celebrate, but specifically, because we’re talking about infection preventionists, I want to highlight the work that they have done, and the positions that they had to manage and the flexibility and the agility that they had to exhibit during the pandemic.”

“IPs reported more empowerment, credibility and value to their facilities during the pandemic,” states a study unveiled today at the annual APIC conference.