Outbreak Response and Healthcare Setting Assessments – Lessons Learned from Injection Safety

Kossover, Rachel

Key Objectives:
This Roundtable Session will address the following objectives:

Discuss strategies for training healthcare providers on outbreak definitions and how to report
Discuss methods of assessing adherence to basic standards of infection control
Discuss potential levers for implementation of prevention guidelines and policies across healthcare settings
Discuss strategies for partner engagement

Brief Summary:
The Ebola outbreak response efforts have highlighted vulnerabilities in infection control practices within the U.S. healthcare system. Healthcare settings play a pivotal role in the identification, prevention and containment of infectious disease threats in the US. State and local health departments contribute to effective oversight of heath care settings, providing targeted assessments of infection control competency, identifying gaps in performance and facilitating programs and policy change to remediate gaps, and implementing response and prevention activities aimed at reducing overall pathogen transmission in healthcare settings. To accomplish this work, state and local health departments can look to previous CDC injection safety activities as a starting point. These activities include an assessment of provider injection safety practices conducted in 2013, development of a HAI outbreak table top exercise, development of an outpatient policy guide highlighting key policy areas (investigations, reporting, training and licensure) that state health departments may wish to consult when considering pursuing policy changes within their own states, and development and deployment of a suite of injection safety training and education materials. In this session, participants will hear the lessons learned from the injection safety experience. Application of the concepts of basic outbreak investigation, outbreak reporting by healthcare providers, training of healthcare providers and licensure of healthcare facilities to fill gaps identified by the 2014 Ebola outbreak will be discussed.