A national survey of 4,078 infection preventionists shows that the field is approaching a demographic cliff, as 41.6% of respondents were age 56 years or older.
Partial results1 of the “MegaSurvey” by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) showed that 1,164 (28.7%) IPs were age 46-55; 1,541 (37.4%) were aged 56-65; and 172 (4.2%) were age 66 or older.
“That tells us that we need to begin to engage younger people, as the IPs of today are retiring,” says Linda R. Greene, RN, MPS, CIC, FAPIC, president of APIC and manager of infection prevention at UR Highland Hospital in Rochester, New York. “We need to make sure we have a knowledgeable, competent work force.”
Though more details will be upcoming as additional analysis of the survey is completed, the partial results underscore that IPs are primarily concerned with staffing and resources.
“The issue of staffing levels for IPs is perhaps among the most urgent and common concerns expressed by IPs,” the APIC survey notes. “Thus staffing levels, organizational structure, and support of IP programs will be the subject of an upcoming analysis as more of the survey results are published”
A related factor may be that approximately one-third of IPs are working beyond hospital settings across the continuum in long-term care facilities, outpatient settings, and ambulatory care.
“In infection prevention that seems to be the most urgent issue — particularly when we think about when I first started infection prevention over 25 years ago, it was really confined to acute care,” says Greene. “But if we look at infection prevention across the continuum of care, there is a need for knowledgeable and competent IPs to facilitate all of the other settings like long-term care.”
The majority (82%) of respondents had a primary discipline of nursing. Among all participants, the mean salary was $76,933 (median, $75,000; range, $25,000-$225,000). Individuals with current CIC certification had higher base compensation than those without current CIC certification ($85,911 vs $68,817). The factors most frequently reported by participants as the criteria for compensation included experience (54.6%), performance measures (41.0%), highest degree earned (38.8%), and CIC certification (31.5%), APIC reports. Surveillance and investigation were reported as the most frequent activities by IPs, accounting for approximately 25.4% of infection prevention efforts.
Greene comes in as the 2017 APIC president as the field undergoes continuing transition. Hospital Infection Control & Prevention asked her to discuss a few goals or themes she will pursue.
Greene: This is a single year in the long history of an organization. So for me, and I think for most presidents, we want to build on what has happened before. If you go back to our mission [statement], it is ‘to create a safer world through infection prevention.’ Our ultimate vision is healthcare without infections. How do you get there is the question. I think from a patient safety perspective that we are continuing to move in that direction. From an organizational perspective, we are broadening our influence. For example, we want to make sure that APIC is at the table when we have discussions about infection prevention and the need for IPs. We were fortunate just last month to be invited to the president’s advisory council on combatting antimicrobial resistance. They wanted to know what the workforce looked like and what the educational needs are. So those are the types of things that we want to build on.
HIC: You state that another area of personal interest is promoting leadership. Can you elaborate on that concept?
Greene: By promoting leadership, I don’t mean that every IP is a manager — but they are a leader. Their job is to help bridge that gap between the evidence and the implementation — to bring that evidence to the bedside and help facilitate [safer care]. If you think of the typical surgeon, for example, trying to get them to engage in best [infection control] practices requires some unique leadership skills. There is the science and then there is that ability to really influence people and help them understand the downstream effect from a single patient.
HIC: The downstream effect of transmission to other patients?
Greene: When I was a staff nurse, when I took care of a patient I only thought about that patient’s good. But part of our job as IPs, and the larger job that we need to help healthcare providers understand, is that there is a downstream effect from a single patient’s infection. They may have drug-resistant organisms that can be spread and cause other infections. These are things that APIC has worked on, but I hope to again use some examples to really heighten that awareness so frontline care providers understand.
HIC: What are some of your other goals?
Greene: The other thing is to create those collaborative relationships — not only with care providers, but with organizations we are working really closely with like SHEA. We have complementary skills and putting them together will ultimately help patients. That is something we have started over the last two years, but we continue to accelerate it. We hope to launch a leadership program this year [aimed at] the IP and the epidemiologist. At the end of the day, I think all of these things will help fulfill the mission of a safer world of infection prevention.
REFERENCE
- Landers T, Davis J, Crist K, et al. APIC MegaSurvey: Methodology and overview. Am J Infect Control 2017; In press.
