Back in those golden days we were called infection control nurses ; now the focus is on prevention and with that has come process change as we address infections caused by emerging antibioticresistant organisms .” — Connie Steed ,
MSN , RN , CIC , FAPIC
through my career without APIC . In the early years , not everybody knew about it , and it took me almost a year to find out about them from the CDC . I became a member and my professional growth and development escalated because I had a network , and I had a structure for education . APIC expanded and became successful in supporting the profession of infection prevention and control .”
“ All through our 50-year history , here have been many watershed moments and milestones ,” says a former APIC president Ann Marie Pettis , RN , BSN , CIC , FAPIC , of the University of Rochester Medicine in New York . “ Like HIV , when we first started seeing young men dying of an infectious disease and we had no idea what was causing it . I had just started working in infection prevention right before that , and AIDS changed everything . It truly was a watershed moment , almost like remembering where you were when ( John F .) Kennedy was assassinated , for Instance . Everybody remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard about it . So , I think the field of infection prevention has had moments like that . Many more outbreaks have followed since then , and they have all led up to the COVID-19 pandemic .”
As APIC was forming in the 1970s , and four years after the launch of what became the NHSN , a watershed report was released , essentially paving the way for the emergence of the field of infection prevention and control . The results of the Study of the Efficacy of Nosocomial Infection Control ( SENIC ) demonstrated that strategies such as surveillance and feedback led to significant decreases in HAIs . Essentially , the SENIC study sought to determine whether ( and to what degree the implementation of infection surveillance and control programs ( ISCPs ) lowered the rate of HAIs ( called nosocomial infections then ); as well as to describe the status of ISCPs and infection rates ; and demonstrate the relationships among characteristics of hospitals and patients , components of ISCPs , and changes in the infection rate .
The SENIC project found that hospitals reduced their nosocomial infection rates by approximately onethird if their infection surveillance and control program included four components : appropriate emphases on surveillance activities and vigorous control efforts ’ at least one full‐time infection‐control practitioner per 250 beds ; a trained hospital epidemiologist , and , for surgical wound infections , feedback of wound infection rates to practicing surgeons .
More milestones followed in rapid succession . Structure and accountability were needed , and in 1976 , the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations ( JCAHO ) – shortened to The Joint Commission now – enacted the very first infection control standards . Two years later , APIC released its first position paper , titled the “ Statement on Infection Control Programs .” In 1981 , the APIC Certification Association ( APICCA ) was established , to eventually become the Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology , Inc ( CBIC ), and in 1983 , it administered its first certification exam . In 1986 , then-President Ronald Reagan established National Infection Control Week , which eventually became International Infection Prevention Week ( IIPW ), celebrated annually in October . That same year , infection control was upgraded by the Health Care Financing Administration ( now known as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ) from a standard under sanitary environment to a separate condition of participation .
More progress came in the 1990s . In 1994 , the Association for Practitioners in Infection Control became known as its current moniker , setting the stage for an evolution of terminology in the field and the profession . For example , as we know , the emphasis was changed from mere infection control to infection prevention over the years , and the more obscure nosocomial term was changed to hospital -acquired and eventually morphed into the preferred healthcare‐associated infection and paired with the profession of healthcare epidemiology . Even staffing terminology evolved , moving from the original titles of infection control nurse and infection control officer to infection control professional / practitioner , to eventually the modern term of infection preventionist , adopted in 2008 .
“ They used to call us infection control officers , but in many places , such as the New York State Department of Health , this is still our title ,” Pettis confirms . “ The word ‘ officer ’ scared some people ; when you showed up , they all scrambled . Nobody wanted to see you coming , and honestly , HIV changed that because then they were knocking my door down because they were scared , and they wanted to understand the disease better .”
Steed concurs . “ When we transitioned from infection control to infection prevention , it was a big deal ,” she says . “ It was an important transition for us to make because what we ’ ve learned is that when you have a significant challenge like infections , it ’ s much better to try to prevent it instead of merely controlling it . And then we acknowledged that more HAIs were preventable . When IPs embraced that I feel like there was a huge culture change , adopting a vision and mission of healthcare without infection . We ’ ve expanded this now where our mission is a safer world through infection prevention ; we ’ ve transitioned from just safe healthcare to a safer world , and this is appropriate , given the pandemic we have just experienced . We felt very strongly that the vision needed to change to be more encompassing because infection prevention is just not for healthcare , it ’ s for the community , for schools , for airlines , for so much more . Another thing that has changed over the years is that we are now being called upon across the continuum of care beyond hospitals , including