With ambulatory surgery centers facing stricter infection control guidelines and requirements from government and accrediting bodies, Roberta Bannon, RN, MS, a surveyor for Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program, says it is critical for ASCs to contract an infection control expert and that this is not an area for ASCs to neglect for financial reasons.
"Historically, in ASCs, what I've seen is there's a nurse leader — whether it be the director, manager, administrator — who has everything put on his or her shoulders," Ms. Bannon says. "What happens is the physician-owners expect all areas are taken care of well, and what often then falls by the wayside is the fact that [the ASC] needs an expert in infection control. Whether that is somebody that comes in monthly, quarterly, reviews policies, etc., this person is another set of eyes to look at practices within the center."
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She cites a good example of an ASC which contracted with a pharmacy consultant to come in once a month to look at drug usage and documentation, counts of scheduled drugs and drug storage. This consultant produced a good record of every drug used at the ASC and the facility easily passed its inspection because the consultant helped ensure all standards were being met.
This same model should be used to ensure standards are met in the infection control area.
"Without an expert in infection control, policies will likely not meet standards," Ms. Bannon says. "And the standards do say you should have a person with background and experience — typically an APIC-certified person — to be the kind of person that oversees the infection control practices. It is also critical to have someone to oversee the day-to-day infection control practices."
The reasons she says ASCs will not contract with an outside infection control expert are typically financially-driven.
"They're trying to maximize their efforts to save money where they can," Ms. Bannon says. "To have some type of a person as a consultant to come in and write the policies, oversee them, sign off on them, whether it be monthly or quarterly, it's going to cost some money.
"But the owners or administrators don't always see the value in it," she says. "They think they've hired the nurse to do everything. What they don't realize is that we expect whoever is overseeing it has the experience in the infection control arena or is certified in the infection control arena, watches the CDC standards and knows what the new ones are coming up and will implement them, and that can't be the person that runs the day-to-day operations. That person cannot be the 'everybody' and do everything, as much as we'd like them to be, it's impossible.
"My recommendation," Ms. Bannon says, "is that it's well worth spending the type of dollars you need to bring in an infection control expert."
Learn more about Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program.
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