Infection Prevention & Control
Healthcare-associated infection surveillance and prevention: NHSN protocols and case definitions for CLABSI, CAUTI, SSI, VAE and C. difficile, the standardized infection ratio, isolation and transmission-based precautions, sterile processing and high-level disinfection, water management and Legionella control, construction-related infection risk assessment, outbreak investigation, and antimicrobial stewardship. Written for infection preventionists and hospital epidemiologists applying published definitions to real cases.
Guides
Syndromic Surveillance Reporting for Hospitals: The ED Feed, NSSP Onboarding, and the CMS Measure
A hospital syndromic surveillance feed carries near-real-time ED registration and triage data to a public health agency. This guide covers the NSSP Priority 1/2/3 data elements and their completeness thresholds, the Engage-Connect-Validate-Operate onboarding sequence, and the CMS Public Health and Clinical Data Exchange objective that scores it, including the active engagement options and their one-period clock.
Terminal Cleaning Protocol and Audit: The Discharge Sequence, the High-Touch Checklist, and What Each Audit Method Measures
A guide for EVS and infection prevention: the terminal-cleaning discharge sequence, the CDC high-touch surface checklist, disinfectant contact-time (wet-time) compliance, and an honest comparison of direct observation, fluorescent marker, ATP bioluminescence and environmental culture as audit methods.
Epidemic Curve: Choosing the Interval, Onset vs Specimen Date, and Bounding the Exposure Window
The construction decisions behind a hospital epidemic curve: choosing the x-axis interval from the incubation period, why symptom onset and specimen collection date give different shapes, reading point-source, continuous common-source and propagated patterns, and counting back from the peak and the first case to bound the exposure window.
PPE Donning and Doffing: The Sequence, the Trained Observer, and the Competency Record
Isolation PPE donning and doffing for infection preventionists: the ordering logic, the OSHA clauses that make competency enforceable, the trained-observer role, and how to build a defensible competency assessment. Hospital isolation PPE, not cleanroom gowning.
Enhanced Barrier Precautions (EBP): What It Requires That Standard and Contact Precautions Do Not
Enhanced Barrier Precautions require gown and gloves during eight high-contact resident care activities in nursing homes, without the room restriction or dedicated equipment Contact Precautions impose. The three-way distinction, the F880 hook, and the five points where CDC and CMS guidance differ.
VAE: NHSN Surveillance Definition, VAC/IVAC/PVAP Criteria, and Reporting
A ventilator-associated event is an NHSN surveillance category built from a baseline period of stability, a sustained PEEP/FiO2 rise, and the VAC, IVAC and PVAP tiers — distinct from a clinical diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Antibiogram: How to Build and Read a Cumulative Antibiogram
A cumulative antibiogram summarises how local bacterial isolates responded to antimicrobial testing, so clinicians can choose empirical therapy before culture results return. CLSI M39 governs how it is built. This guide covers the construction decisions that change the numbers — isolate de-duplication, surveillance-isolate exclusion, stratification, agent selection and intermediate-result handling — and the specific ways antibiograms are misread.
Transmission-Based Precautions: Contact, Droplet, and Airborne
Contact, droplet, and airborne precautions each specify a different PPE and room-placement standard under the CDC/HICPAC isolation guideline. This guide covers which precaution applies, what it requires, and when it can be discontinued — consolidating droplet, contact, transmission-based, and isolation precautions into one reference.
Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) for Construction
An infection control risk assessment (ICRA) is a required pre-construction process at healthcare facilities: a risk matrix that crosses the type of construction activity against the patient population it will affect to determine a required class of infection-control precautions before work can begin.
Airborne Infection Isolation Room (AIIR): Specifications and Monitoring
An airborne infection isolation room (AIIR) is an engineering control, not just a sign on a door — a negative-pressure single-patient room built and monitored to contain and remove airborne pathogens like tuberculosis, measles, and varicella before they reach the corridor or other patients.
Endoscope Reprocessing: The Process and Where It Fails
Flexible endoscopes are semicritical devices under the Spaulding classification, which means high-level disinfection is the regulatory floor — but the real-world reprocessing sequence is long, manual-step-dependent, and has well-documented, recurring failure points that make this one of the highest-liability procedures in a healthcare facility.
High-Level Disinfection and the Spaulding Classification
The Spaulding classification is the decision framework behind reprocessing: it sorts a device into critical, semicritical, or noncritical based on how it contacts the patient, and that category — not habit or convenience — determines whether it must be sterilized, high-level disinfected, or only low-level disinfected.
Antimicrobial Stewardship Program: CDC Core Elements and Requirements
How hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs are structured around CDC’s seven Core Elements, why Joint Commission MM.09.01.01 and CMS Conditions of Participation make them mandatory, and how the role differs from infection prevention.
Infection Preventionist: Role, Responsibilities, and CBIC Certification
What an infection preventionist actually does — NHSN surveillance adjudication, outbreak investigation, isolation practice, and reporting — and how CBIC’s CIC, a-IPC, LTC-CIP, and AL-CIP certifications work.
CAUTI: NHSN Surveillance Definition, SUTI Criteria, and Reporting
CAUTI is an NHSN surveillance category built from the catheter-day rule plus SUTI 1a/1b/2 and ABUTI criteria — distinct from a clinician diagnosing a UTI in a catheterized patient.
CLABSI: NHSN Surveillance Definition, LCBI Criteria, and Reporting
CLABSI is an NHSN surveillance category built from central-line eligibility, LCBI 1/2/3 criteria, the MBI-LCBI subset, and secondary-BSI attribution — distinct from a clinically diagnosed catheter-related bloodstream infection.
