Infection Prevention and Control Education & Resources

AAOHN has partnered with the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their National Nursing Infection Control Education Network (NICE). Our purpose is to teach occupational and environmental health nurses (OHNs) best practices in infection prevention and control. The goal is to provide real-time tailored infection prevention and control continuing education to OHNs who, in turn, will educate workers, whom in many instances may be other nurses and healthcare workers, thus improving infection prevention and control practices known to be effective in preventing exposure to Ebola virus disease and other emerging infectious diseases.

Why is this Important?

As OHNs, you play a critical role in ensuring that your nurse clients in healthcare settings, whether a hospital, clinic, long-term care facility or an employer-based occupational health center, know and can teach their clients, best practices in infection prevention and control. You and your nursing clients and colleagues are the front-line of defense against infections spreading in healthcare facilities in the US and globally. With the evolution of emerging threats and ongoing issues, such as healthcare-associated infections, you and your nurse-clients and colleagues need to be equipped to understand, follow and teach infection control procedures to protect yourselves and your clients.

What is the Initiative?

In 2018, AAOHN offered various educational opportunities where OHNs can gain more knowledge and skills in infection prevention and control, teach others infection prevention and control best practices and guide employers in the development of infection prevention and control protocols.

Anticipated outcomes of these planned continuing education sessions are that OHNs will be able to:

1. Describe tailored infection prevention and control education and coaching for workers, some of whom will be other healthcare workers (train-the-trainer).
2. Discuss the preparation of policies and procedures to ensure adherence to infection prevention and control best practices.
3. Assess, evaluate and revise the application of infection prevention and control measures, especially when applied to highly contagious diseases, often in collaboration with other IC teams members.

Resources

This web page will be stocked with resources to supplement your infection prevention and control programming. A few are listed here and will be refreshed frequently.

• ANA Sharps Injuries Prevention
• AAOHN Respiratory Protection Training for Healthcare Workers
• Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Resources
• CDC’s Free Infection Prevention Webinar Archives
• CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC)
• ANA NICE Network
• AAOHN Communicable Diseases Resource Lists
• CDC's June 2017 Vital Signs - Legionnaires' Disease
• Infection Prevention and Control Infographic
• ANA White Paper: Recommendations to Optimize Antibiotic Use
• CDC's Get Ahead of Sepsis
• AAOHN's Infection Prevention and Control Resources
  • Preventable Errors in Vaccine Administration
  • Reccomended Immunization Schedule for Adults Aged 19 Years or Older (2017)
  • Injection Safety Info Sheet
  • Healthcare Workers with Potential Exposure to Hep C
  • Disinfect the Diaphragm
  • Candia aruis Info Sheet

CDC & Medscape's Infection Prevention & Control Series

The CDC has partnered with Medscape to offer free CE's for this new free continuing education opportunity focusing on Environmental Services and Infection Prevention. You’ll learn:

• how to recognize the factors that may contribute to infection risk in a healthcare environment 
• about preventive practices to minimize healthcare-associated infections.

 For more information, including dates and registration, visit the main series page on the CDC site.