Some healthcare organizations, including long-term care communities, are taking infection control to a whole new level.
An article published Dec. 7 in Infection Control Today highlights the concept of having a chief infection prevention officer (CIPO). This executive role supports operational roles through the lens of preventing infection. The concept is gaining popularity in hospitals and other healthcare organizations and could influence the long-term care segment.
This executive position oversees and enacts infection prevention and control activities for an entire organization. The person has to collaborate with administrative, board members, quality management, clinical microbiology, clinical engineering, nursing, materials management and environmental services personnel. The CIPO essentially supervises other infection preventionists, whether they’re at the same location or multiple facilities, the article noted. The CIPO also has to be able to represent the concerns and practices of infection control personnel and initiatives to executive level officers.
“Hospital epidemiologists play a vital role in orchestrating the efforts to prevent the emergence and transmission of infection within a hospital,” Shira Doron, MD, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine, and a hospital epidemiologist, said in the article. “[CIPOs] … serve in that same role at a health system level, coordinating those efforts across multiple entities and various health care settings. As a hospital epidemiologist and CIPO, I have years of formal and on-the-job training that is highly specialized at the intersection of epidemiology, infectious diseases, public health, and clinical research methods.”
“As hospitals and other healthcare entities consolidate into larger health systems, having someone responsible for infection control oversight at the system level is critical,” Doron said.
