APIC Sets New Strategic Priorities Amid COVID-19
‘It’s time that we to step up to the plate’
By Gary Evans, Medical Writer
Like other healthcare workers, infection preventionists (IPs) have been overwhelmed in the churning waves of a pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 that seem interminable. Some have been dislocated or deeply distracted from their traditional duties, a major factor in the reported increases of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
An unpublished survey done by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Ohio State School of Nursing found a “startling” level of stress and burnout, Devin Jopp, EdD, MS, CEO of the association, said in an APIC webinar on the new strategic plan. (See Hospital Infection Control & Prevention, December 2021.)
“We had about 20% of respondents reporting depression, 30% clinically screened positive for anxiety, and approximately 70% reporting stress and burnout,” he said. “We know that we have a lot of rows to hoe, if you will, in terms of trying to be there and helping everyone through these difficult times.”
Although the pandemic continues, APIC has seen enough COVID-19 damage to revise its vision statement and strategic priorities. “We knew that we would really have to closely examine and revise our strategic plan, which we were very proud of,” said Ann Marie Pettis, RN, BSN, CIC, immediate past president of APIC. “But COVID really has changed everything, so before we could do that, we also realized that we needed to reimagine our vision and our mission, which really drives everything that we do.”
In that regard, APIC has gone global, expanding its vision statement to a safer “world” through the prevention of infection.
“We’ve expanded into areas like food service, travel, entertainment, sports,” Pettis said. “All of those industries have realized the importance of infection prevention. In terms of our mission, it’s to advance both the science and the practice of infection prevention and control. And you really can’t have one without the other.”
The APIC board of directors spent many months hammering out strategic priorities, which still are something of a work in progress, she said.
“But it was really a labor of love over many months, and we really did a lot of soul searching and had a lot of discussion,” Pettis said. “We’re pretty excited about where we’ve landed with it.”
Strategic Priority One
The first APIC strategic priority is to champion the scientific advancement and the practice of infection prevention and control, she said. Actions to accomplish that include the following:
- Prioritize, promote, and support infection prevention research.
“Quite honestly, for many years, we’ve relied on research from other disciplines to really guide what we do in infection prevention,” Pettis said. “It’s time that we to step up to the plate and develop our own research, particularly around the whole HAI arena. We need to focus on research in terms of equity, and how inequity, perhaps, has really affected HAI acquisition.”
- Advance research competency among IP professionals.
- Develop and disseminate evidence-based best practice guidance for infection prevention and control.
Part of that plan is to hire IP researchers to do some of this work, Jopp said. “We’re going to develop our own research agenda and have dedicated research staff with IP experience to help do that work and do it quickly,” he said. Updating workforce demand and staffing ratios for IPs is particularly crucial, Jopp added.
Strategic Priority Two
The second APIC strategic priority is to elevate IPs as essential advocates, leaders, and experts, Pettis said. This priority will be accomplished by the following actions:
- Engage and influence key leaders on the value of the infection prevention field and profession.
“We need to make sure that others absolutely realize who we are and what we do,” Pettis said. “I think some, obviously, already knew that, but certainly COVID has placed a very bright light on us and so now’s the time that we really need to grasp that opportunity.”
- Strengthen leadership capabilities to enhance the influence of IPs.
“We need to engage and influence key leaders in the infection prevention field,” she said.
- Modernize IP staffing guidance to influence employers.
“This is huge, and something, as IPs, we’ve been clamoring for — for a long time,” she says. “We know that what is in the literature does not reflect the environment that we’re practicing in right now, so we absolutely need research to really prove to our employers that one size is not going to fit all.”
- Influence the policy and regulatory environment to advance infection prevention.
“This has to do with influencing CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration), Joint Commission, etc.,” Pettis said. “We absolutely need to work on that, so that we elevate ourselves to the point that people all recognize the important role that we play.”
Strategic Priority Three
The third APIC strategic priority is fostering the development of the next generation of IPs in the whole workforce. Actions to be undertaken include the following:
- Develop and promote pathways to enter the field of infection prevention.
Part of this is an academic pathway, one that will not sacrifice the diversity of IPs with backgrounds in nursing, public health, and microbiology.
“We can’t just rely on people falling into infection prevention,” Pettis said. “I know that’s how I landed in infection prevention. I totally fell into it and thought I’d try it for a little bit, and, you know, 30-plus years later, here I am. We can’t rely on that anymore. My dream would be that people in high school would say, ‘I want to be an infection preventionist when I grow up.’”
- Develop a nationally recognized career advancement pathway.
- Develop strategies to attract new talent.
“[We need to do this] so that IPs don’t get frustrated and decide to leave the field because there’s just nowhere to go,” she said. “In order to do that, we need to develop strategies that will help us attract new talent — that’s key.”
- Develop strategies to retain existing IPs.
“We need to keep these [new] people in infection prevention,” Pettis said.
“My experience has been that two years is that magic number [when] people decide it’s just not for them. They get out of it, and we lose a lot of people at that two-year mark. We need to really figure out how we can retain IPs — that’s critical.”
REFERENCE
- Weiner-Lastinger LM, Pattabiraman V, Konnor RY, et al. The impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on healthcare-associated infections in 2020: A summary of data reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2022;43:12-25.
Like other healthcare workers, infection preventionists have been overwhelmed in the churning waves of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. An unpublished survey conducted by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology and The Ohio State University School of Nursing revealed a “startling” level of stress and burnout.
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