The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) has released a statement that expresses concern that the COVID-19 Omicron is taxing infection prevention and control teams nationwide. They urge facilities to prioritize activities critical to patient safety and infection surveillance work inside our nation’s healthcare facilities.
The statement reads, “Infection prevention professionals serve as a critical line of defense in preventing and responding to infections and integrating evidence-based strategies to limit their spread. Given the current Omicron surge, facilities must prioritize activities that are crucial to patient safety and use infection prevention and control resources wisely to ensure we can keep facilities safe from infection. Failing to do so could enable the spread of COVID-19 among patients and staff and spur increases in healthcare-associated infections and the spread of drug-resistant organisms.
“The current IP workload, combined with a shortage of IPs, requires healthcare leaders to work with their infection prevention and control teams to carefully examine where they should focus their efforts. APIC calls on healthcare leaders to focus on critical patient safety work.
“To assist, APIC has created the IPC Acuity Scale for Crisis Situations, a free, downloadable tool that organizes infection prevention and control tasks into categories that should remain high priority, as well as those that can be delegated.”
