How AI Can Strengthen Infection Prevention and Control

Devin Jopp, EdD, MS, is the chief executive officer of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology (APIC)

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to quickly evolve, the question of determining if AI will play a role in infection control and prevention (IPC) is replaced with when and how. AI, by the day, is accelerating immensely in its ability to outperform humans on a number of tasks, from reading to language comprehension.

In health care, we see a myriad of potential use cases for how AI may be deployed as it relates to IPC. In some cases, hospitals are already using these tools. For example, AI can be leveraged to evaluate large data sets, like electronic health records (EHRs), for surveillance. These early versions of AI are known as large language models, but the future will add generative models that can leverage images and videos.

In response to the growth of AI, Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) is hosting a day-long virtual conference entitled “APIC AI Summit: The Impact of AI on IPC” on October 15, 2024, so that infection preventionists can learn more about improving patient safety and quality.

The federal government is pursuing cutting-edge research in AI, and we will hear from Susan Monarez, PhD, deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), one of the federal government’s foremost thinkers on AI and health care. ( https://arpa-h.gov/about/people/susan-monarez )

Monarez will discuss what is on the horizon in AI and machine learning and explain the nexus of biomedical innovation, health security, and preparedness.

The private sector is a beehive of activity, just like the birth of the Internet a few decades ago.

Like ARPA-H in the government sector, some top minds thinking about AI are at Google’s Silicon Valley R&D hub X, the moonshot factory. We are fortunate to have X’s director with us at the AI Summit.

X’s Fabien Beckers, PhD, and 2 other IP leaders will forecast how radical new technologies will shape IPC and where AI-powered innovation will solve some of today’s leading IPC challenges. IPs will walk away from the Summit knowing how private sector technology and health care can partner to develop real-world solutions that benefit patients and health care facilities.

Another important partner as we evaluate the impact of AI is the chief information and health informatics officers (CHIOs) in facilities. As tech and data experts, they will be critical as we evaluate how AI will be deployed to bend the curve on infection prevention and control. One session will feature a mashup of IPs and their CIOs/CHIOs from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Alameda Health System on how CIOs/CHIOs and IPs can work in tandem to plot a course for AI in IPC Programs.

In addition to evaluating future use cases, the AI Summit will focus on AI technology today and how it can be used in areas like advancing National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) surveillance definitions and reporting.

Kelly Holmes, MS, CIC, senior associate, infection prevention and management associates, will join our program to help attendees learn the strengths and limitations of Chat-GPT-4o in applying 2024 NHSN surveillance definitions and how to utilize AI to train IPs to code infections.

Holmes will walk us through how her team created a validated test bank of 42 surveillance scenarios to help improve how Chat-GPT-4o can be used to correctly code CAUTI, CLABSI, and Secondary BSI but also the date of the infection, the Repeat Infection Timeframe, location mapping, and so much more.

We’re also honored to be partnering with our colleagues from the World Health Organization, who will be presenting on leveraging AI for the global advancement of IPC, which will explore the ethics of AI and how AI can be used to advance IPC.

In addition to these sessions, APIC is offering a number of other prerecorded webinars that can be accessed by attendees submitted by IPs around AI use cases.

We’re very excited to bring together this immense set of experts to help unpack what AI means for the field of IPC.

We hope the AI Summit will shed light on AI’s advantages and help prepare our profession as technology evolves.