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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

 health care-acquired infections (HAIs) page presents updates on the latest techniques and strategies in the never-ending battle between infection preventionists and HAIs. Focusing on the latest in medical literature, we also present perspectives from the top infection preventionists and other medical experts in the country about how to put the growing knowledge of HAIs into use in the everyday world of infection prevention. Articles and videos often focus on methods to contain and control pathogens and multidrug-resistant organisms from spreading within the health care system.

Contaminated ice machines caused Burkholderia multivorans infections at hospitals in California and Colorado. Health officials recommend stopping ice machine use during clinical care to prevent further outbreaks.

Health Care-Associated Burkholderia multivorans Infections Traced to Contaminated Ice Machines 

Postoperative pneumonia (POP) is a common surgical complication that increases hospital stay, costs, and mortality. Oral hygiene before and after surgery can significantly reduce the risk of POP.

Can Brushing Teeth Before Surgery Prevent Postoperative Pneumonia?

Use this handout to explain the basics of why infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship are essential and how the 2 fields must have a unified approach to patient and staff safety


Strengthening Defenses: Integrating Infection Control With Antimicrobial Stewardship

If a patient receives treatment or therapy that they do not need, it can cause unnecessary harm. This is true for medications, surgeries, and medical procedures, especially blood transfusions. 


Blood Product Overtransfusion Is a Global Issue: Here Are 5 Reasons the Practice Must Change 

Infection preventionists focus on patient safety. Reducing CLABSIs requires meticulous care for all vascular access points, not just central lines, to prevent bloodstream infections.

CLABSI Culprits in Critical Care: Looking Beyond the Expected Portal of Entry

Infection Control Today's (ICT's) Editorial Board members

Meet Priya Pandya-Orozco, DNP, MSN, RN, PHN, 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.

In this installment, we hear from Bernadette “Priya” Pandya-Orozco, DNP, MSN, RN, PHN, CIC, is the manager for infection prevention at O'Connor Hospital, which is part of the County of Santa Clara Hospital and Health System.

My name is Priya Pandya-Orozco, and I am an infection prevention and control manager. My journey started in infection control quite a long time ago. I would say it was about 26-27 years ago, [and] I was in labor and delivery and doing my care as a bedside nurse. I started thinking about how infection can spread from just not wearing appropriate PPE [personal protective equipment], maybe at the birthing when a patient is about to eminently give birth.

I thought about ideas for how I could wear PPE. I remember thinking there was some talk about how sometimes putting PPE on can remove the connection with your patient. And I thought, but we need to protect ourselves. And how do you do that? And how can you explain it?

So, it was my first thought as a new nurse—thinking about what and how I protect myself from infections. How do I ensure that I'm also protecting my patient? And that's where my brain started, like morphing into, what was it? I didn't even know at the time, honestly, that there was this whole infection prevention department, and that feels like a complete blackout in my mind, like I should have known that I was going to be my passion, my love, for the rest of my life.

That was quite a long time ago. Then, I went into public health and worked there for about 7 years. I worked on communicable disease and immunization services, seeing prevention at the front line and looking at how we reach communities that are at risk. And that was another love of mine.

Then, in 2009, H1N1 hit, and we also had some pertussis outbreaks. Infection prevention in the acute care hospital was such a solid partner with public health. I thought, “Oh, wow. Wouldn't it be great if I could join that force there in the acute care setting?”

So, I did, and I joined and followed them. This is where I ended up. I ended up as a manager later on, and I started as a baby infection preventionist. I was trained and mentored by some amazing bosses who helped guide and steer me in the right direction, and I've ended up here and am very happy.

So, trending topics right now for me are focused on environmental cleaning and disinfection, as I'm sure everybody else is. Still, I'm looking—and I have been for a very long time—with the instructions for use [IFU] by the manufacturers, and they're very difficult to comprehend. I've found some that have been so difficult to understand. The grammar is incorrect. It doesn't fit a hospital. They are marketing to a hospital but provide information or instructions only done in a home; they don't get clear guidelines.

So those things concern me because I am thinking about newer IPs. How do you navigate that? How do you figure out how to get the manufacturer to give you something doable for the frontline, and then with the focus of reducing the number of disinfectants in a hospital, to 3 or 4 and one being sporicidal you want to reach out and just say, “Can we have one that does it all?” Because it's just so hard, and you want to make the frontline have an easier process.

The whole point of cleaning and disinfection is that we shouldn't make it more complicated with 19 different products that have to be utilized when they don't all kill the same pathogen. You can't say that you have a clean environment if you find out later [that] you have a high-level or high-priority pathogen, like 

 and you’re not utilizing a disinfectant that would kill [those pathogens].

Everybody knows you come to the hospital, and maybe, on day 1 or day 2 of your admission, we start to see you have symptoms of a certain pathogen. How, then, are we supposed to go back and look at what has come in and out of the room and is not properly disinfected?

So, those are the things that are difficult. We're trying to make a focused effort to educate our frontline, [and] everybody, even all our hospital staff and providers, about what cleaning and disinfection are, how to use the products effectively, and give visual aids to everyone so that they have it at their fingertips.

Some of the hot topics coming out again are similar to the manufacturers IFUs, looking and going, and I know there's a lot of work at APIC [Association for Professionals in Infection Prevention and Epidemiology] to lean in and say, “This is what we need to do.”

What Should ICT Cover in the Next 18 Months?

There was a recent paper on the IFU, and that was helpful. We educated our leadership on that, and that helped tremendously. But sometimes you're underwater with anything happening, and you don't know that these things are above your head and circling, and you need to be looking at those pieces.

But how do you give people even more education to like newer IPs, or even seasoned IPs, and say, here's a repository that needs to go out? I want to say, it's a memo. I think it'd be nice to have things [like the] health alert networks in different states. So, we have 

 here in California, so it'd be interesting if we had something like a CAHAN message that came out through 

 and said, “This is something that you could send out.” And it would be like an SBAR [Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation] to share with everyone, taking this as what it is. Instead of the IP having to make the message when it's the same message, we're saying there's a way to summarize it generally. I think about those things because I try to make them general.

After all, we serve many different areas, including subacute, SNFs [skilled nursing facilities], hospitals, and clinics, and we want to make sure that it meets their needs and what they can utilize. When we give instructions on…how we want them to take this information and share it with the frontline, I think that might be extremely helpful.

I think I should also focus on what cleaning and disinfection are. We are partners with—and I have always said this--I'm partners with SPD [sterile processing department] and EVS [environmental services], walking in. Because you need to know how everyone who's cleaning instrumentation and who's cleaning our environment. You need to understand what their hardships are. What training are they receiving? You need to be a part of those trainings. Those are difficult to be a part of when you're trying to do surveillance and keep up with everything; it will help you in the long run if you partner with those wonderful teammates in EVS and SPD.

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 Priya Pandya-Orozco, DNP, MSN, RN, PHN, CIC.

Meet Infection Control Today's Editorial Advisory Board Member: Priya Pandya-Orozco, DNP, MSN, RN, PHN, CIC

Dr Matthew Pullen at the University of Minnesota. Fungal Infections

Fungal Disease Awareness Week is celebrated from September 16 to 24, 2024, and to discuss fungal infections, 

) spoke with Matthew Pullen, infectious disease physician and assistant professor of infectious diseases and international medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He is also a member of 

During the conversation, Pullen discusses the treatment of fungal diseases and antifungals, One Health, neglected tropical fungal diseases, fungal pneumonias, and, finally, what the future of fungal diseases could be.

He also discusses his recent trip to the Mycoses Study Group Education & Research Consortium (MSGERC), which was held in Colorado Springs from September 4 to 6, 2024.

“The Mycoses Study group is a cool, high-functioning group of clinicians, researchers, residents, and fellows in the medical community whose main focus is fungal disease,” Pullen told 

. “Every 2 years, they have a big conference where we talk about advances in clinical trials, advances in new antifungal medications, hot topics that will be coming up in the next couple of years.”

Pullen also spoke about the app he created for the Mycosis Study Group, which he presented at the consortium. 

 he has created to help research infectious diseases. This will be a wonderful resource for everyone worldwide.

“The Mycosis study group has a website called 

. It's freely available to everyone, and they envisioned it as the go-to resource for clinical fungal disease. You can find all kinds of good information about fungal infections, treatments for those infections, diagnostic techniques for different infections,” Pullen said. “I modeled this app on things like the Johns Hopkins antibiotic guide. It's a high-yield resource you can keep on your phone and use day-to-day in the hospital. So, I have taken a lot of the information from Dr fungus and turned it into the Doctor Fungus app. We will also use it to connect clinicians out in the field to clinical trials that are recruiting.”

The conversation carried over to antifungals, and Pullen discussed the study he has recently launched to learn more about how successful antifungal treatment is and how often it is being used instead of the “old boilerplate medications.”

“[The study is] called the Prospective Nationwide Study of Endemic Mycosis. It's an online recruitment study nationwide. Anyone who's had any of those 3 infections in the last three months can join. Essentially, it's an online survey they fill out that goes over when they were diagnosed, what sort of symptoms they had when they were diagnosed, what treatment they were given, what treatment they're on now, and then a few questions about risk factors for disease. Then, every month, they'll get a much shorter survey that will query them about, you know, how you've been doing on your antifungal medication. Have you had to switch? And if you have had to switch, why was it side effects? Was it a worsening infection? The goal is that over the next few years, we'll get a lot of real-world data on antifungals and be able to answer a lot of the questions that doctors and patients have about antifungals.

“So, if anyone watching this has antifungal patients, or if they are an antifungal patient, 

 where you can go to get more information.

: A yeast infection caused by an overgrowth of 

, a type of yeast normally present in the body.

: A common fungal infection, often including athlete's foot, that affects the skin.

: A widespread fungal condition that impacts around 14% of the population.

: A lung infection typically affecting individuals with weakened immune systems.

: A lung infection caused by a fungus found in soil in certain regions of the U.S.

: A fungal infection that predominantly targets the lungs or brain.

: A lung infection caused by a fungus found in soil, bird droppings, and bat droppings, especially in some U.S. regions.

: A severe lung infection mainly affecting people with compromised immune systems.

: A severe eye infection that can threaten vision, sometimes resulting in eye loss.

Watch ICT's discussion with Matthew Pullen, MD, at the various fungal infections, including Candidasis, aspergillosis, and many others. He also talks about his recent trip to the MSGERC Conference. 

Fungal Disease Awareness Week Highlights Antifungal Advances and Resources 

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

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. 

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

Ruth Carrico, discusses her groundbreaking study on AI's role in identifying HAIs and its implications for the field.

Unlocking the Potential of AI in Healthcare

It is impossible to avoid the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) right now, and the integration of AI in health care is a groundbreaking innovation that has the potential to revolutionize the industry. 

Recently, a proof-of-concept study by Ruth Carrico, PhD, DNP, MSN, FNP, a professor at the University of Louisville, and an independent infection preventionist (IP) consultant, delved into the transformative role of AI in identifying health care-associated infections (HAIs). 

In an exclusive interview, Carrico sheds light on the challenges, triumphs, and key insights gleaned from this research she conducted with Timothy L. Wiemken, PhD, MPH, CIC, senior director, Digital Platforms team lead for Pfizer, and director of data science and epidemiology, at Saint Louis University Institute for Vaccine Science and Policy.

The study aimed to explore how AI could revolutionize infection surveillance—a cornerstone of IP activities. Carrico emphasizes that surveillance serves as the foundation for understanding risk factors, crucial for devising effective infection control and prevention strategies. However, the labor-intensive nature of surveillance, in terms of both time and resources, spurred the investigation into AI's potential as an invaluable ally in this critical domain.

“Dr. Wiemken and I were interested in how you use artificial intelligence, particularly in identifying HAIs,” Carrico told 

. “Now AI is at this point, we're not at the point where AI can pull together yet all of the different pieces of information that are used for diagnosis. But we are trying to learn in the proof of concept with this particular study was to see where are we with AI and looking at surveillance, and assisting the IP. We know surveillance is incredibly time-consuming, not only the amount of time but the resources that are involved in performing surveillance and surveillance is the mainstay of our activities because we use in our knowledge to identify risk factors, and those then are the things that we want to try to control. So, the study is focused on whether we can take the definitions that have been provided by the CDC National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) and use AI to respond or react to situations or scenarios that we pose back to the AI agent."

 the key findings from the study regarding the performance of AI-powered tools in identifying CLABSI and CAUTI infections. “We were pleased because we found out that if we do a good job curating the document, that is, we give the AI agent the truth. So, like what constitutes an infection, and then we structure our questions in a format that will be able to be answered by the information provided, then it worked very, very well."

Carrico continued. “When I mentioned the importance of having the questions set up so the agent can answer them when we talk about retract and infection, we know that there are several different levels or different types of urinary tract infection. One would be an ABUTI [asymptomatic bacteriuria UTI], and one might not be an ABUTI. We are looking at the AI agent being able to quickly describe or go through the truth of the information when we asked it a question to categorize which type of CAUTI was that? We learned that as we formulate the questions that we used to template."

In an exclusive interview, Ruth Carrico, professor at the University of Louisville, and independent infection prevention consultant, discusses her groundbreaking study with Timothy L. Wiemken, PhD, MPH, CIC, on AI's role in identifying health care-associated infections and its implications for the field.


Unlocking the Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: A New Study

ICT speaks with Erica Smith about infection prevention in the ASC

AORN Infection prevention in the ambulatory surgical center

Erica Smith, MBA, a doctoral candidate in public health and the global brand manager of infection prevention and control at Henry Schein, has a wealth of experience and a keen eye for common pitfalls. 

Her upcoming presentation at the AORN’s International Surgical Conference & Expo 2024 on Monday, March 11, from 11:30 AM—12:15 PM will be on the topic of “Infection Prevention in the ASC Environment of Care” and promises to illuminate crucial strategies for surgery centers and independent ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). In this exclusive interview, 

) talks with Smith about her inspiration, key takeaways, and the pivotal role of infection control and prevention (IPC) in ensuring patient safety and operational efficiency.

The conference runs from Saturday, March 9, to Tuesday, March 12, 2024. For all ICT’s coverage, 

 asked Smith what her inspiration was for this year’s presentation. “Part of it was seeing that surgery centers needed a support system to help them with this topic, infection prevention and control. 

"Many people come from the acute care space where they have a department that helps you know that just focuses on infection for internal control or just focuses on education,” Smith said. “But then when they go to the independent, especially the independent ASC space, many they don't have that, and they have to do everything from staffing to checking in patients who now they're doing the infection prevention and control standard operating procedures and so on and so forth. So that was the inspiration to create this CE course for them. That way, they can have a reminder of what's going on and be able to have an assurance that they may be doing things correctly or that they need to change some things.”

To learn more about a perioperative nurse’s opinion, 

 asked Smith what are the most significant challenges that perioperative nurses face today and how her presentation addresses them.
“I think one of the biggest things we are seeing, and we will probably continue to see, is burnout and that high turnover. When we see that high turnover, that's when things slip through the cracks because it's like I just trained so and so, and now I got to train someone else coming in, or I just did this, and now we're short-staffed by 3 nurses because a bug went through."
Smith explains that they must cover much more than IPC. "So not just IPC, how we are handling patients, how we're getting them through procedures, how we're discharging them, and so on and so forth. So I will elaborate rate within this presentation that yes, these are common mistakes, but this is how we fix them.”



In the dynamic world of infection prevention and control (IPC), Erica Smith knows perioperative nursing and infection prevention. With a passion for supporting surgery centers and independent ASCs, her upcoming presentation dives deep into the common mistakes and challenges faced in IPC practices. 

AORN 2024 Presentation: A Talk With the Presenter of "Infection Prevention in the ASC Environment of Care"

Health care workers must stay vigilant against rare pathogens. Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, FAPIC, an expert in infection prevention, 

Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, Discusses How to Prepare for Rare Infectious Diseases

Because the landscape of infectious diseases is constantly evolving, health care workers (HCWs) should be aware of the possibility of rare, yet equally significant, pathogens. HCWs should be aware of the critical importance of robust infection prevention measures, including accurate diagnostics, isolation protocols, and stringent disinfection practices, in mitigating the spread of such infections.

) spoke with Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, FAPIC, assistant professor at the

University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of 

Popescu discussed multidrug-resistant organisms like 

Health care workers must stay vigilant against rare pathogens. Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, FAPIC, an expert in infection prevention, emphasizes the importance of robust measures and preparedness.

HAIs

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