Implementing strategies to prevent infections in acute-care settings.

This document introduces and explains common implementation concepts and frameworks relevant to healthcare epidemiology and infection prevention and control and can serve as a stand-alone guide or be paired with the "SHEA/IDSA/APIC Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Hospitals: 2022 Updates," which contain technical implementation guidance for specific healthcare-associated infections. This Compendium article focuses on broad behavioral and socio-adaptive concepts and suggests ways that infection prevention and control teams, healthcare epidemiologists, infection preventionists, and specialty groups may utilize them to deliver high-quality care. Implementation concepts, frameworks, and models can help bridge the "knowing-doing" gap, a term used to describe why practices in healthcare may diverge from those recommended according to evidence.

Infection Prevention and Control Core Practices: A Roadmap for Nursing Practice.

In 2017, the CDC released a set of Core Practices focusing on infection prevention and control relevant for care delivered in all settings. These eight Core Practices address foundational elements of practice and should be embedded into every aspect of nursing care and part of every nurse's professional development plan.

Infection prevention and control core practices: A roadmap for nursing practice.

The CDC continues to stress the urgent issue of increasing microbial resistance. The organization recently joined forces with the American Nurses Association to bring awareness to this issue through an approach that prevents inappropriate antibiotic use and stresses infection prevention.

Effective Perioperative Communication to Enhance Patient Care.

Breakdowns in health care communication are a significant cause of sentinel events and associated patient morbidity and mortality. Effective communication is a necessary component of a patient safety program, which enables all members of the interdisciplinary health care team to effectively manage their individual roles and responsibilities in the perioperative setting; set expectations for safe, high-reliability care; and measure and assess outcomes. To sustain a culture of safety, effective communication should be standardized, complete, clear, brief, and timely.

A Review of the CDC Recommendations for Prevention of HAIs in Outpatient Settings.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most health care-associated infections (HAIs) are caused by contamination from the hands of health care providers or patients, contamination from the environment, and contamination from the patient's own skin. To mitigate common sources of infection transmission, frontline health care providers must be compliant with basic infection-prevention interventions, including hand hygiene, environmental cleaning and disinfection, safe injection practices, and designation of a trained health care professional to be responsible for the infection prevention and control program. Integration of CDC recommendations should incorporate a bundled approach to these interventions and should be part of a comprehensive approach to infection prevention and control.