At that time there weren’t ASC-specific guidelines for an infection control program, so Ms. Kendrick did some research and took the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology’s EPI 101 online course on “The Fundamentals of Infection Surveillance, Prevention and Control.” She then worked to translate the hospital-geared materials for ASC application. “We were novices, but we sat down and took out parts of the EPI 101 program for our own,” says Ms. Kendrick.
Ms. Kendrick was then first in line when the APIC program for ambulatory surgery finally came out. “It’s difficult at best to take hospital policies and requirements and adapt them to an ambulatory center that doesn’t have the same problems as a hospital,” she says. When she discussed APIC’s ASC program with others, Ms. Kendrick was surprised by the number of people whose facilities didn’t already have a reasonable program in place. LSDC seemed to be far ahead, but Ms. Kendrick was eager to help other centers build up their own programs.
At APIC’s national conference in June, Ms. Kendrick was asked to speak in a focus group for ambulatory surgery about LSDC’s infection control program. The program has helped cut the facility’s infection rate down to .01 percent out of 19,000 cases this year, which contributes to the success of the Lakeland facilities.
The Lakeland Surgical and Diagnostic Center’s infection control program is no longer in its infancy and Ms. Kendrick shares four ways she has made LSDC’s program a model for other ASCs to emulate.
1. Four mandatory annual staff meetings. To increase awareness, CEO Dave Daniel pulls the staff together for quarterly organization-wide staff meetings. These programs include current infection control topics of importance, sterilization, and how to clean the facility.
2. Physician involvement. Two physicians, an epidemiologist and a pathologist sit on the LSDC infection control committee. It takes time to get people involved, but changes can make an impression. During a hand hygiene staff certification event, Ms. Kendrick showed a film clip from the Center for Disease Control website. “It is a demonstration of hand hygiene done by French dancers all dressed in black,” says Ms. Kendrick. “We gave everyone little bottles of alcohol and made them get up and do the dance. It really made an impression, because now that’s what they think of when doing proper hand hygiene.”
3. Surveillance. LSDC has instituted abbreviated environmental surveillance each month and further in-depth surveillance is done quarterly. The committee strives to find deficiencies ahead of time and provide incentive for physicians to follow proper procedure. “We have a program to walk around with physicians and give them a gold dollar coin if they’re seen performing hand hygiene correctly,” says Ms. Kendrick. “It’s real money, not chocolate.”
4. Administrative support. CEO Dave Daniel has been tremendously instrumental in the development of the infection control program. “He has given us the support that has made it possible, has allowed us to participate in all of the educational opportunities we could find and has funded all these efforts to promote infection prevention,” says Ms. Kendrick.
Since the beginning of the program, all of LSDC’s sterile processing technicians and the OR manager have become certified in sterile processing and the GI director has achieved her CGRN (Certified Gastroenterology Registered Nurse). This sterile certification includes high level disinfection of endoscopy instruments.
Watch the “Hygiene des mains Hospitaux Universitaries de Geneva” video LSDC used to learn more about hand hygiene.
Learn more about LSDC.
