Infection Prevention

Many of the best practices for identifying, tracking, and preventing infections are the same across various healthcare settings. Several of the tools listed below were developed for use in other settings but can be readily adapted to long-term care. Some are flagged as being specific to skilled nursing facilities.

Antimicrobial Stewardship

Nursing Home Antimicrobial Stewardship Guide
AHRQ

Core Elements of Antimicrobial Stewardship for Nursing Homes
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

2016 Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit, Speaker Handouts
Northwest Hospital Alliance
 

Condition-Specific Resources

Urinary tract infections (Listed on a separate webpage)

Handwashing

Handwashing is the number one thing all can do to protect yourself, as well as your residents and their families, from infection. A recent Wall Street Journal article called out the benefits for using the World Health Organization’s technique to train healthcare personnel.

Use Qualis Health's "hand hygiene huddle" to engage residents and their families in infection prevention. has also done recent projects to encourage participation by hospital patients and families in handwashing.

Resource Libraries

Resources from the CDC related to infection prevention in long-term care facilities, from clinical resources to resident and family education.

Infection Prevention (IP) Tools
 

Potential Local Partners

Your local health departments can be valuable partners regarding infection prevention. Find contacts for Idaho and Washington.

Training

Nursing home regulations require the facility infection control officer have relevant training. Places to start include:

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology Association (SHEA)

Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC)

• Intermountain APIC (Idaho, Eastern Oregon, Northern Nevada)
• Inland Northwest APIC (North Idaho, Eastern Washington) Email contact
• Oregon and South Washington APIC
• Puget Sound APIC