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Gary S. Marshall, MD; Shanna M. Barton, MD; Theresa M. Fiorito, MD

Patient, Provider, and Caregiver Connection™: Prevention and Control of Meningococcal Disease — Individualizing Vaccine Recommendations in Adolescent Populations

 prevention page contains news and information on the latest updates on all facets of infection prevention. From vaccinations and immunizations to controlling air and water flow in a health care system, preventing infections falls not only on the infection prevention staff, but on all who interact within the hospital, from environmental services teams to those planning and building new construction.   

Hospital-associated infections affect over 1 million US patients annually. Proper medical equipment cleaning and sterilization significantly reduce infection risks, improving patient outcomes and safety.

How Cleaning Medical Equipment Directly Affects Patient Safety and Equipment Longevity

Sean Brown’s 2024 Disease Prevention Summit presentation emphasized leveraging technology, prioritizing high-risk patients, and environmental surveillance to enhance infection prevention and control strategies.

Top 3 Secrets to Effective Infection Prevention and Control Through Strategic MDRO Surveillance

A presentation at the Disease Prevention and Control Summit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, spoke about the rising threat of Candida auris. 

Fungus Among Us: The Rising Threat of Candida auris in Health Care Settings and How to Mitigate It 

Learn about the new Recertification option for the a-IPC certification, and the APIC's Emerging Infectious Diseases Task Force, and the Mpox Playbook. 

Recertification Options for a-IPC, APIC's Emerging Infectious Diseases Task Force and Mpox Playbook

This week's Pathogen Pulse highlights: Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus (EEEV), Boar's Head products recall due to listeria contamination, and mpox cases on the rise in Africa.

Top 3 Infection Prevention Events to Watch Now: Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Listeria, and Mpox

Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC. Infection Control Today's Editorial Advisory board member

Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC.

's) Editorial Board members—a diverse group of professionals dedicated to advancing infection prevention and control practices. This series highlights each member's unique expertise and contributions to the field.

From groundbreaking research to innovative strategies, these experts are at the forefront of enhancing health care safety. Join us as we learn their insights, experiences, and visions for the future, providing valuable knowledge and inspiration to elevate infection control protocols.

This installment is from Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC, System Program Manager of Ambulatory Infection Prevention for CHRISTUS Health, Irving TX.

My name is Shannon Simmons. I am the program manager of ambulatory infection prevention, and my journey as an infection preventionist began in the microbiology lab. I have always been fascinated by microorganisms and everything they can do in the unseen world of microorganisms. I spent some time as a microbiologist and wanted to expand my knowledge. Getting a master's degree in public health exposed me to different options, and infection prevention sparked my interest. It fused my love for public health and bringing everyone together, structures, standards, and policies. It's not that cool, but it's something that I have an interest in, and I am also bringing in the side of microbiology.

That is where I started, and I got an opportunity to join a very big team of infection preventionists at a large county hospital. So, I got the best experience coming into infection prevention by being a part of that large team because we had nurses and other people who had come from laboratory backgrounds. These people had come from working in health departments. It was a very well-rounded team. Having such a large hospital and seeing so many things, I got the best experience of everything possible. I wish every new infection preventionist could go into a large hospital with a large team and learn from many people how to make infection prevention work for everyone; infection prevention is everyone's responsibility.

Having those different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences molded my career in infection prevention, the kind of things that I didn't think about because I don't have a nursing background; I was able to relate more to speaking with my colleagues and even the coming out of the bedside world, having a different, more epidemiological look at things, and understanding how the microorganism itself is even working to cause these issues that are happening that we physically see with people or in environments. This really brings everything together.

I had the opportunity to be a director of infection prevention during COVID-19. Making those decisions, understanding what's happening, and being that subject matter expert at a time when we were all learning on the fly, so [I have] had a very interesting infection prevention career. Now, taking on the role of focusing primarily on ambulatory care settings also leads me to be more creative with a lot of information because infection prevention has primarily been focused on hospital settings.

Now that much more health care is taking place outside of hospital settings, we realize what that looks like in our clinics and ambulatory surgery centers and how we can still provide the best care. Even though these patients aren't there, as long as they are in hospitals, for the most part, it's still a place where we should be practicing those infection prevention guidelines. Some things may need to be tweaked to meet the needs of those areas.

I like this role of working with smaller spaces that don't necessarily have an infection control practitioner but still need that assistance to ensure they are doing what is best for the patients and the staff. Trends that I am seeing are the emergence of what artificial intelligence (AI) can do in spaces, and it's so new and interesting that even I am trying to understand better options and how to translate those into our ambulatory settings.

 should cover in the next year], I have noticed nothing specific…[except AI] on the cusp of being a big phenomenon. But there's a lot of conversation about how we can use AI in health care in general. So, I'm very interested and excited to see what that looks like in the infection prevention world.

APIC is making a big push for this and will have a conference soon so we can all learn more and have better conversations. Infection prevention is a multidisciplinary part of health care, and just having that extra helps with AI. I'm very excited to see how that can help everyone.

Manufacturer instructions for use… is the hot topic everywhere. The more we talk about it, the closer we're getting to something that works for everyone. I'm very happy with the progress we're making in that area. It seems like such a simple and easy concept. The people who made it tell us how to use it, but there must be some universal language, everyone understanding everyone's role when it comes to not only using a product but also cleaning, sterilizing, and disinfecting it. I'm very interested to see more and hear more about how we can make instructions for use relatable, understandable, and universal in some way because it is such an important aspect of infection prevention.

Meet the experts shaping infection prevention: Infection Control Today's Editorial Board members share insights, experiences, and cutting-edge strategies to enhance health care safety and quality. Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC.

Meet Shannon Simmons, DHSc, MPH, CIC, ICT's Editorial Advisory Member

Meet Matt Pullen, MD, ICT EAB Member

This installment is from Matthew Pullen, MD.

I am Dr Matthew Pullen at the University of Minnesota. I am an infectious disease physician and assistant professor of infectious diseases and international medicine. I've been asked to talk about my journey into health care and infection prevention and the trends I want to see in infection prevention in 

. So, as far as getting into medicine, [it is] something I always wanted to do, even when I was a little kid. My parents always had 

s around our house. I remember that, in kindergarten, there was an early 3D rendering of a bacteriophage on the cover. And I drew that in my journal in kindergarten and loved it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I just always loved anything about viruses and bacteria.

Going into later years, in high school, I [was] still interested in it, volunteered in clinics and hospitals when I could, [then] continued doing that in college. Then [I] got into genetic research at college, under the mentorship of Dr Margaret Kovac, who was just a wonderful geneticist at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.

From there, I interned as an intern geneticist with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the FBI Academy. I stayed on there for a bit, doing genetics work in the Counterterrorism Support and Forensic Research Unit. Most of my work was related to mitochondrial DNA using technologies that, at the time, were ahead of the market, so things that weren't available to anyone else that today—it was long enough ago—that today they would be massively outdated and slow and useless, but in 2006 they were cutting-edge.

After that, I was still trying to decide if I wanted to do research or clinical medicine. I decided my heart was still in clinical medicine, so I applied to medical school. While doing that, I took a research position at Vanderbilt University, working in a lab that specialized in the genetics of the circadian rhythm. So, I kept one foot in the genetics world.

It took 2 cycles, but [I] got into medical school at the University of Tennessee in Memphis. I had a great education there, stayed there for my internal medicine residency, and got a phenomenal clinical education. Then, after that, it was time to apply for a fellowship in infectious diseases. I wanted to learn some aspects of international health during my fellowship training, and Minnesota has a very strong track record for that. They have a core research group that is doing a lot of work in Uganda.

During residency, I got to work in Kenya, right next door, so I was a little familiar with the region. So, I came here and started working with David Boulware, [MD, MPH, professor of medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine] on cryptococcal meningitis and tuberculosis research and got to spend a little bit of time in Uganda my first year of fellowship. Then, through his mentorship, he got a Fogarty fellowship to the National Institutes of Health and spent a full year living in Uganda researching drug-resistant [tuberculosis]. While there, I got to work a little with Doctors Without Borders. They have an isolation unit in the town that I lived in, so I got to see the inner workings of that.

When I returned to Minnesota, we opened what is now our hospital's regional special pathogens unit. So, I asked to join that team, and I was the first fellow who was crazy enough to decide to join that team. Now, we make it a part of the fellowship program where they can be exposed to it. But we got to do training on infection control for Ebola virus, Lassa, and all kinds of high-complication pathogens that, thankfully, we have not seen here yet. I'm still a member of that team.

Then, ICT asked me to join the Editorial Advisory Board. I have contributed a few pieces and quotes here and there.

As far as trends that I see in infection prevention, one trend that I really like is I think we are taking a much more pragmatic and practical approach to infection prevention. Or most of my medical education, everything has been ramped up to a 10 with infection prevention. You know, every MRSA case is gowns and gloves. Everything is maximum materials being used, and in the last few years, more and more research has come out that's shown maybe we're a little overboard with that. There are questions of whether the MRSA we're seeing is community-acquired or hospital-acquired; it may be where our resources are better spent in the community or on other prevention methods. So, I think that's good. I think being open to changing our way of thinking will help save costs in health care and make these resources more available when needed.

 for the rest of the year, I think that falls into 2 buckets: practical things that we should cover and then pet interests that I think are interesting but are probably not very practical. As far as practical things, I think you like the trends getting into some of the more cutting-edge research on practicality versus utility and efficacy in infection control emerging pathogens as more comes out about 

, and resistant pseudomonas, and things like that. Those are things that day-to-day will be helpful from the less practical but personally interesting side of things would be little pieces on infection control and bioterrorism and biodefense agents, those things that we don't think about often because they're not huge day-to-day concerns. Still, if you're on call when smallpox walks into your ER, you should know how to handle that.

Meet the experts shaping infection prevention: Infection Control Today's Editorial Board members share insights, experiences, and cutting-edge strategies to enhance health care safety and quality. Meet Matthew Pullen, MD. 


Meet Matthew Pullen, MD, Infection Control Today's Editorial Advisory Board Member

Preventing overtreatement from C difficile with Rachel Guran, MPH

Cloistriodides difficile with Rachel Guran, MPH

 (AJIC) describes the outcome of a new approach to testing for 

 based on diagnostic stewardship principles. At Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Florida, updated guidelines for ordering 

 tests led to a 20% reduction in inappropriate testing, ultimately helping to prevent patient overtreatment.

) spoke with Rachel Guran, MPH, BSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, director of epidemiology and infection prevention at Memorial Healthcare System and an author of the study, “Impact of an electronic smart order-set for diagnostic stewardship of 

 infection (CDI) in a community healthcare system in South Florida.”

In this interview, Guran explains why the study was done, what the principles of diagnostic stewardship are, and how they were applied in this study to revise 

“Diagnostic stewardship is definitely a journey that many health care systems have been on for a while just like our partners in pharmacy and antimicrobial stewardship, we focus on with lab to partner to make sure that patients have the right test for the right reasons at the right time, for the right outcomes,” Guran said. “There are many benefits to diagnostic stewardship from the tests are able to better perform if they're used for what they're indicated for. So better results, more accurate results, cost savings, better for the patient that we're not doing unnecessary tests on them. This was a multidisciplinary effort to try to increase our diagnostic stewardship efforts at Memorial.”

asked what insights Guran and her fellow investigators learned from investigating this trend and how future guidelines might address this issue. “By focusing the study on patients who were symptomatic, as that was the appropriate indication for 

ficile. So we did find those patients once that algorithm was it, the education from the algorithm was in place, and then that electronic order stopped the inappropriate ordering. Patients who did not have signs and symptoms [or] patients who [recently] had laxatives. That is what we saw a decrease in, and that's exactly the goal we were going for…our NHSN rates have been amazing, and we saw a huge decrease in the amount of reportable 

Check out the rest of the interview to find out how to use this study to improve your facility’s unnecessary treatment of C difficile.

A Memorial Healthcare study shows updated C difficile testing guidelines led to a 20% reduction in inappropriate tests, improving diagnostic accuracy and preventing unnecessary treatments.

Reducing Inappropriate C difficile Testing: A Diagnostic Stewardship Success Story

David Levine, Infection Control Today's Editorial Advisory Board Member

This installment is from David Levine, PhD, DPT, MPH, FAPTA, a distinguished professor at the University of Tennessee who has spent a significant portion of his career in clinical practice and research, particularly in infection prevention and control. Levine talks about his journey in this domain, which began about 15 years ago. However, his academic background is rich with diverse qualifications, including 2 doctorates and 2 master’s degrees, alongside a longstanding interest in microbiology.

Levine's introduction to infection control was somewhat serendipitous, emerging from a collaboration with 

, a microbiologist with expertise in plant microbiology. This partnership led to the establishment of a Clinical Infectious Disease Control Laboratory on campus, a space where numerous students, residents, and premed undergraduates have contributed to and benefited from the research efforts. Levine emphasizes the importance of curiosity-driven research, which has been made possible by internal funding and student support, allowing his team to explore questions of personal and professional interest, even if they do not attract large grants.

Levine’s work spans both human and veterinary medicine, reflecting his interest in zoonotic and anthroponotic diseases—illnesses that can be transmitted between humans and animals. This dual focus allows for a comprehensive approach to understanding how different species interact with infectious agents. For instance, while 

 is a significant problem in human healthcare, it is much less prevalent in veterinary patients, illustrating the different impacts of the same pathogen across species.

A significant portion of Levine’s research has focused on pediatric infectious diseases, conducted in collaboration with the University’s College of Medicine and supported by the faculty in the neonatal intensive care unit. Here, his work has not only concentrated on direct patient care but also on improving the environmental conditions in which care is provided. This includes investigating ways to enhance cleaning protocols in outpatient clinics, which often lack the rigorous guidelines imposed on inpatient facilities.

Levine also touches on the evolving role of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in health care. He sees these technologies as promising tools for accelerating the collection and analysis of data, which could lead to more timely interventions in patient care. However, he acknowledges that the integration of these technologies into everyday practice is still in its early stages.

Another area of interest for Levine is the often-overlooked outpatient environment. While much attention is given to infection control in hospitals, outpatient settings, where most health care is delivered, receive comparatively less focus. Levine believes that more attention needs to be directed towards these areas to improve overall health care outcomes.

In addition to his research, Levine is deeply involved in education, both for health care professionals and the public. He highlights the importance of ongoing education in keeping up with the latest trends and updates in infection control, noting that this is a continuous and essential aspect of health care that will always be relevant.

Levine also discusses the challenges facing the field, such as staffing shortages and burnout among infection prevention staff, which have been exacerbated by the increasing patient volume and the persistent issue of antibiotic resistance. He notes that while these challenges are not new, they continue to be significant hurdles that the healthcare industry must address.

Overall, Levine’s career reflects a deep commitment to improving infection control practices across both human and veterinary medicine. His work is driven by a passion for discovery and a desire to make meaningful contributions to the field. As he looks to the future, he sees potential in new technologies like AI and data analytics. Still, he also recognizes the enduring importance of education and the need to address ongoing challenges in staffing and resource allocation.

Meet the experts shaping infection prevention: Infection Control Today's Editorial Board members share insights, experiences, and cutting-edge strategies to enhance health care safety and quality. Meet David Levine, PhD, DPT, MPH, FAPTA. 


Meet Infection Control Today's Editorial Advisory Board Member: David Levine, PhD, DPT, MPH, FAPTA

’s) wide-ranging coverage of the infection prevention and control world. Everything from interviews with known opinion leaders to the news that infection preventionists and other health care professionals can use on their jobs.

Dear Helpdesk: Uplifting Team Morale During Financial Uncertainty and Layoff Threats

Maintaining team morale during financial instability and potential layoffs requires clear communication, emotional support, and professional development opportunities to reassure and retain valuable team members.

USDA Proposes New Regulations to Reduce Salmonella in Poultry

The USDA aims to enhance food safety and public health while maintaining cost-effectiveness and ensuring safer poultry products by implementing targeted monitoring and a phased compliance approach.

NIH Study: Routine Lab Tests Ineffective for Diagnosing Long COV

A recent National Institutes of Health study reveals that routine lab tests are ineffective for diagnosing long COVID, highlighting the urgent need for novel biomarkers to identify and treat the condition accurately.

WHO Declares Mpox Surge in DRC a Global Health Emergency, Calls for Urgent International Action; APIC Responds

WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros declared the outbreak of monkeypox in DRC and other African countries a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. APIC provides a tool for infection preventionists and epidemiologists.

Meet Infection Control Today's Editorial Board Member: Henry Spratt, Jr, PhD

Meet the experts shaping infection prevention: Infection Control Today's Editorial Board members share insights, experiences, and cutting-edge strategies to enhance health care safety and quality. Meet Henry Spratt, Jr, PhD.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending August 17, 2024.

Weekly Rounds: With Mpox Surging,  WHO and APIC Respond, and More

Henry Spratt, Editorial Advisory Board member video

From groundbreaking research to innovative strategies, these experts are at the forefront of enhancing health care safety. Join us as we learn their insights, experiences, and visions for the future, providing valuable knowledge and inspiration to elevate infection control protocols. 

In this installment, we hear from Henry Spratt, Jr, PhD. Spratt is the senior microbiologist and professor at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga and has dedicated over 3 decades to the study of microbiology, particularly in environmental settings. 

Initially focusing on wetland microbiology and bioremediation, Spratt’s research contributed significantly to understanding how microbes in wetlands can be harnessed to clean up toxic environments, such as those affected by acid mine drainage. However, his career took a pivotal turn about 20 years ago when he began collaborating with David Levine, PhD, DPT, MPH, FAPTA, a physical therapist and another member of 

's Editorial Advisory Board, leading Spratt into the realm of health care-related microbiology.

This collaboration began with a study of the microbial environment in physical therapy clinics, leading to their first published paper a decade ago. The success of this research prompted their university to establish the Clinical Infectious Disease Control Research Group in 2015. This interdisciplinary group has since been instrumental in monitoring environmental contamination in various health care settings, including inpatient and outpatient clinics, veterinary clinics, and long-term care facilities.

In this video, Spratt highlights a critical issue in many health care facilities: the lack of consistent and effective infection prevention practices, particularly in environments where environmental services are outsourced to contractors. His research has revealed concerning levels of contamination in various health care settings, including the presence of multidrug-resistant organisms like Methicillin-resistant 

. Despite these findings, he notes that the response from health care administrators is often inadequate, largely due to constraints imposed by low-bid contracts and high staff turnover among cleaning personnel.

A significant part of Spratt’s work now focuses on advocating for better infection control practices and educating health care professionals about the importance of environmental monitoring. His research group has developed rapid and cost-effective methods for detecting live bacterial contaminants on surfaces, which could revolutionize how health care facilities monitor and manage their environments.

Spratt also discusses the potential of new detection technologies, such as biosensors equipped with aptamers—small pieces of single-stranded DNA that bind to specific bacterial proteins. These sensors could provide instantaneous detection of harmful bacteria in clinical settings, greatly enhancing infection prevention efforts. With continued research and development, these tools could become affordable and widely accessible, even in resource-limited settings.

Spratt’s journey from environmental microbiology to health care-related research underscores the critical need for robust infection prevention practices in health care settings. His work not only highlights the gaps in current practices but also offers innovative solutions that could significantly improve patient safety and outcomes.

Meet the experts shaping infection prevention: Infection Control Today's Editorial Board members share insights, experiences, and cutting-edge strategies to enhance health care safety and quality. Meet Henry Spratt, Jr, PhD. 

2024 CBIC President, Andrea Flinchum,explains (AL-CIP).

CBIC President Explains the New AL-CIP Certification at APIC24

Ahead of the 2024 APIC Annual Conference & Exposition (APIC24) held from June 3 to 5 in San Antonio, Texas, 2024 CBIC president Andrea Flinchum, MPH, BSN, RN, CIC, LTC-CIP, discusses her upcoming year as president of CBIC and her presentation on the new AL-CIP certification. She discusses her goals for her presidency and what she is most looking forward to at APIC24.

CBIC will introduce the “Advanced Leadership Certification in Infection Prevention” in 2025, based on the APIC Competency Model. Focusing on future-oriented skills like research and leadership, the certification will be assessed by portfolio. An overview session will be led by CBIC board members, with a Q&A segment.

“The biggest goal that I have is, along with the rest of the board is to get our advanced certification up and running,” Flinchum told 

. “But I want all individuals who work in infection prevention and control to understand that certification can be for them, that it's not just for someone who is maybe a nurse, as you know, has been in the past, we have a lot more people working in infection prevention and control. And we have folks from public health [who] work in infection control, which is very kin to my soul because I am now working in public health. But I want us to make sure that the CIC exam and all our certifications remain relevant and important.”

Flinchum also explains the difference between FAPIC and the new AL-CIP certification. “The fellowship is primarily honorific and contingent on maintaining membership. However, the difference with the advanced leadership certification is that the award is [from], of course, CBIC. It is a formal attestation following a professional, rigorous assessment process using internationally recognized credentialing industry standards that an individual has demonstrated advanced leadership and regional, national, or global impact. And then, recertification will be required to maintain the advanced leadership CIP designation. All the details have not been ironed out on how that exactly will work for the recertification. But just as our other certification examinations require recertification. This one will not be in the form of an exam.”

Andrea Flinchum, 2024 president of Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology, INC (CBIC) explains the AL-CIP Certification at APIC Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas. 

Conference

Infection Preventionists Advocate for Improved Medical Device Instructions for Use (IFUs)

Recently, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) published the 

Modernizing Medical Device Instructions for Use(IFUs): Infection Preventionists Speak Up for Patient Safety

,” which illuminates the complexities, inefficiencies, and frustrations associated with IFUs. IPs have expressed concerns about the need for more clarity, outdated information, brand-specific instructions, and contradictions between device specifications and IFUs. These challenges consume valuable time and pose risks to patient safety.

, MLS, BS, CIC, FAPIC, vice chair of APIC's Public Policy Committee, to learn more about IPs' challenges with IFUs, 

Marie H. Wilson, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, is an infection Preventionist in the Quality Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, and the 2024 APIC Communications Committee chair.

Heather Ridge, BS, BSN, RN, CCHW, CIC, system infection prevention outpatient manager for Novant Health, Inc, in North Carolina. She is also the 2024 vice chair of the APIC Communications Committee.

Michelle W. King, MT(ASCP), MPH, CIC, is the corporate director of infection prevention and control for the Department of Epidemiology at the McLeod Health System in Florence, South Carolina, and a member of the APIC Communications Committee.

Each IP gave examples of stories of challenging issues they have had with IFUs.

“For me, this white paper is the culmination of many years of IPs' experience being a middle person between manufacturers and regulators in terms of the appropriate use of devices in the healthcare setting, and important to us is their cleaning and disinfection,” Wilson said. “So, there have been a number of issues that have been identified in the white paper that are going to resonate with infection preventionists that read it through our experiences in health care, even maybe before we were IPs in health care, and so I appreciate APIC taking this step to recognize that we are just messengers in this process. And we need some support from the manufacturers and regulators for real, sustainable change to improve the health care safety environment.”

King agreed, “One of the most important parts of the white paper was their recommendations. That standardized format for IFUs and making the IFUs last for the lifespan of the product indicate when the IFP was last updated because that's important as well. One of my pet peeves was making sure that you're not too vendor-specific on the products that are recommended for cleaning.”

All 3 IPs agreed that APIC’s paper on IFUs was comprehensive and well laid out. Ridge said, “The action plan is just perfectly in line [with] where we need to go, especially as an organization for infection prevention…. The only thing I would like to hear a little bit more focus on is that we have this great partnership with our vendors, and we are very active with our sponsors and our national committee. However, we push that relationship that the vendors need to have and know about infection prevention because sometimes it goes beyond just a sellable product. It's what's feasible for the end user to do. They're not always in the same, again, same understanding as we do. So, to make sure that vendors understand what's out there, what's normal, how do we partner together, and we're going to ask questions, and it's going to take a while to have that collaboration in place.”

IPs discuss APIC's white paper, which highlights IPs frustrations with outdated and unclear medical device IFUs and the challenges they face.

importance of accurately identifying, labeling, and documenting sterile instruments to prevent reprocessing errors.

Increase communication in SPA

Communication is vital in the sterile processing department (SPD). However, the SPD and the departments they work with may not have the best communication channels. How can that breakdown be rectified? A presentation at the Healthcare Sterile Processing Association (HSPA) Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, from April 20 to April 23, 2024, gave a unique idea.

Lila Price, CRCST, CER, CHL, the interim manager for HealthTrust Workforce Solutions; and Dannie O. Smith III, BSc, CSPDT, CRCST, CHL, CIS, CER, founder of Surgicaltrey, LLC, and a central processing educator for Valley Health System, presented “What’s Your Depth Gauge?” at the HSPA Annual Conference.

Their presentation covered the importance of accurately identifying, labeling, and documenting sterile instruments to prevent reprocessing errors. They discussed how to establish clear communication channels from the operating room (OR) and the sterile processing department (SPD) to convey any special requirements of the instruments. Finally, they demonstrated an interactive educational game Price developed to help identify medical instruments in the SPD. Smith drew the instruments’ pictures for the game.

), Price, who also serves as the quality and education manager at Penn Medicine for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, explained the game. “So, it's a communication building [game]. I tell people to think about it in the form that there are two people involved in the game. We divided the room into teams; there will be a drawer and then a clue giver,” Price said. “They both have information about the actual instrument. But the drawer cannot say anything; they just have to freely draw the image of the instrumentation or the medical device, whichever is there. Then, the clue giver cannot say the name or any part of the name of the instrument. And try to get the rest of the team to guess what the issue is based on that. 

Price continued, "So, there were a lot of interesting drawings [during the presentation]. Some of them were like that, and they liked how fast you guys like various skills. I was always ready to mix. But it's just a good way to build communication.”

Smith, who was also honored to serve as the 2024 secretary for the Mid-Atlantic Central Service Association, a regional chapter of HSPA, said, “So we want to make sure that we realize that we're all here to serve the patient, at the end of the day, and all our goals are challenging, and they are in their own right." 

Smith continued, "However, we want to make sure that we can figure out how to communicate respectfully and realistically in a proper timeframe. And so that's why there was a time restraint on there. So, take 30 seconds to draw an image and get your team to guess. Because sometimes, that's all we have because this is the split-second time. So we tried to incorporate all those frustrations, and that goes on in real life and a real-time working environment. But in that space of a fun activity to help build team building.”

At HSPA 2024, Lila Price, CRCST, CER, CHL, and Dannie O. Smith, III, BSc, CSPDT, CRCST, CHL, CIS, CER, emphasized accurate instrument labeling and demonstrated a game to improve communication between the operating room and sterile processing departments.


Playing to Increase Communication and Learn Instruments in the Sterile Processing Department

Sterile Processing Technicians: Preparing for Survey

How do sterile processing technicians prepare for a surveyor to walk through the door? Do they know the questions they may be asked? Do they know the answers to those questions? What are the surveyors looking for?

That was the topic of the presentation given by Jill Holdsworth, MS, CIC, FAPIC, CRCST, NREMT, CHL, manager of infection prevention for Emory University Hospital Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia; and Katie Belski, BSHCA, CRCST, CHL, CIS, quality and patient safety coordinator at Ascension Columbia St Mary’s Hospital.

Their presentation was titled “Get Survey Ready! Quality and Infection Prevention Regulatory Hot Topics” at the Healthcare Sterile Processing Association (HSPA) Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, from April 20 to April 23, 2024.

After their presentation, Holdsworth and Belski spoke with 

) about their key points and the challenges that sterile processing technicians face today.

“Our presentation covered quality and infection prevention regulatory topics,” Belski said. Team members will be survey-ready. Jill and I are passionate about this topic. Working closely in sterile processing ourselves, we've recognized the importance of the relationships that need to be formed between quality and infection prevention to feel comfortable.”

One of the key takeaways from their presentation is to round together with environmental services and facilities. Holdsworth explained. “With environmental services and facilities, it's important to bring them into your rounds and round at the same time, rather than everybody rounding at separate times. It's also important to know the AAMI standards and read those [and] try to follow them. We talked a lot about what all the different standards say. And it's just really being engaged. If you're an infection preventionist, spend time in the sterile processing department, understand what people are seeing as issues, and be viewed as a partner, not an auditor, so that we can all partner together and work together. We don't need to be working separately; we need to be working as team members.”

Jill Holdsworth, MS, CIC, FAPIC, CRCST, NREMT, CHL, and Katie Belski, BSHCA, CRCST, CHL, CIS, spoke at the HSPA Annual Conference about being survey-ready. Listen to ICT's interview to learn more!

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