Click here to see the article addressing the SHEA IPC resourcing whitepaper in the
May-June 2025 issue of Healthcare Hygiene magazine.
The whitepaper addresses IPC program leadership, encouraging the use of a dyad model that includes both physician and infection preventionist leaders— its reporting structure, expertise, and competencies of its members, and the roles and accountability of partnering groups within the healthcare facility.” in low-level disinfection, but they’ re trying to become more involved with what is going on outside of the SPD department, looking at non-critical devices, the types of things that would be addressed in this document. And if you are thinking,‘ What are you talking about, I don’ t know what AAMI is,’ APIC created a document last year that reviews the 10 things you need to know when you’ re consulting an AAMI document.”
Regarding what’ s new from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America( SHEA), Phillips pointed to the SHEA whitepaper issued earlier this year, Raising the Bar: Necessary Resources and Structure for Effective Healthcare Facility Infection Prevention and Control Programs. This whitepaper was based on a systematic literature search and formal consensus process, with the authors advocating for raising the expectations for facility IPC programs, moving to effective programs that are:
• Foundational and influential parts of the facility’ s operational structure
• Resourced with the correct expertise and leadership
• Prioritized to address all potential infectious harms
The SHEA whitepaper addresses IPC program leadership, encouraging the use of a dyad model that includes both physician and infection preventionist leaders— its reporting structure, expertise, and competencies of its members, and the roles and accountability of partnering groups within the healthcare facility. It outlines a process for identifying minimum IPC program medical director support, and Phillips said the whitepaper applies to all types of healthcare settings except post-acute long-term care.
“ Raise your hand if you have ever tried to advocate for more support or more resources for your IP department,” said Phillips, who observed that nearly everyone in the audience had tried previously.“ This is the document for you. And if you haven’ t advocated but you just want assurance that your job is important, this document reminds you that it is. As you’ re reading it, it’ s a mood-booster to know that your job is incredibly important and why that’ s the case. It gives you all the reasons why we impact care and patient outcomes. Infection prevention must be part of a facility’ s operational structure, and we need to be properly resourced and have the correct expertise in our departments.”
Phillips also addressed another recent document from SHEA, the Multisociety Guidance for Sterilization and High-Level Disinfection, designed to serve as an update also for the CDC’ s Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities, 2008.“ I think it’ s interesting that the document is in a Q & A format,” Phillips remarked.“ So, even if you know the answer and this is the answer you’ ve told your staff a hundred times, sometimes it’ s nice to see it in writing and have the rationale built in. There are many major changes, including addressing manufacturers’ instructions for use, and I thought the authors did a good job of explaining what’ s important around IFUs.”
Phillips also shared with the APIC audience that the Facilities Guidelines Institute( FGI) will publish its 2026 Guidelines plan in April 2026. As part of this endeavor, the FGI’ s Infection Prevention Topic Group has been discussing a revision of terms, including sinks; how to create symmetry between hospital and outpatient guidance and terms; addressing the focus on surfaces to ensure they are smooth, nonporous, cleanable, and durable; as well as the standardization of handwashing stations across hospital, outpatient and residential facilities. Phillips said that the FGI will allow two opportunities for public comment, with the revised document available online that shows revisions in real time,“ so that it’ s easier to see what direction they’ re moving in,” according to Phillips.“ They’ ve had the two public comment periods already for this cycle, but once they finish, they are going to publish it, and then they move to the next and start updating it again. So, you haven’ t missed your chance to provide comment for the future.”
Other national guidance for IPs that has been issued recently includes a Hospital-Onset Bacteremia( HOB) and Fungemia Playbook from the National Quality Forum, which is designed to help healthcare leaders and clinical care teams in acute-care settings implement HOB prevention, identification, and treatment initiatives. It includes basic and advanced identification strategies, relevant examples of HOB management with supporting documentation, and a sample framework for HOB root cause analysis. In addition, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality( AHRQ) issued its Toolkit for MRSA Prevention: Targeting SSI, which tackles the complex problems of MRSA and SSI prevention for surgical services, specifically cardiac, hip and knee joint replacement, and spinal fusion surgeries. The toolkit is divided into four strategies: Nasal decolonization, preoperative skin antisepsis, antimicrobial prophylaxis, and evidence-based infection prevention.
Phillips wrapped by commenting,“ Guidelines for IPs can actually be very helpful to implementing practice. It can strengthen your efforts to have the evidence behind it and to have an outside organization sometimes say what you’ re trying to say to your hospital, the important outcomes that you want to happen in your facility.”
Joint Commission Streamlines Standards
In the APIC session,“ The Joint Commission: Infection Control Update,” presenter Tiffany Wiksten, DNP, RN, CIC, senior associate director of the Standards Interpretation Group Operations and Quality Assurance, shared with attendees updates to the Joint Commission infection control standards as well as reviewed frequently scored and high-risk infection control observations and common challenges identified during the survey process.
“ The surveyors are not really looking at new things,” Wiksten said, acknowledging that while the high-consequence infectious disease standard is a new addition,“ At the end of the day, infection control is infection control,” she emphasized.“ We haven’ t really removed a whole lot of things, we haven’ t really added a whole lot of things, we’ re looking at a lot of the same stuff. Of course, we’ re going to examine those frequently scored and high-risk infection control observations and common challenges that we identify during survey because when the surveyors dig into the issues, it’ s because they want to help you identify the root cause of why there’ s a defect or noncompliance in your process.”
Wiksten explained that the infection control standards underwent an update so that they would be consistent with the ongoing initiative to simplify
20 • www. healthcarehygienemagazine. com • jul-aug 2025