Infection Prevention & Control System Director

Riverside Health System•Newport News, VA

About The Position

The System Director, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) serves as a highly visible, energetic leader and champion for infection prevention and control throughout the organization, and is responsible for operational oversight and implementation of the program. The Director promotes high reliability for recommended evidence based care related to infection prevention and control practices assuring a focus on people, process and technology to improve performance. The System Director assures accurate and timely submission of all required data and information for required and voluntary healthcare acquired infection (HAI) reporting programs. The System Director creates a continuous learning environment focused on patient safety and prevention of harm throughout the organization. The Director oversees the IPC program that includes: identification of infectious disease processes; surveillance and epidemiologic investigation; prevention and control of the transmission of infectious agents; employee/occupational health; management, communication and education; environment of care; and cleaning, sterilization, disinfection, and asepsis.The Director ensures compliance with infection prevention and control related accreditation and regulatory requirements at the national, state and local levels, and develops and maintains procedures necessary to meet regulatory requirements and achieve sustainable, organization-wide readiness. The Director ensures that hospital departments comply with established IPC policies, procedures, quality assurance and quality control measures. The Director provides oversight and direction for data management functions and processes for required IPC reporting and pay for performance measures insuring data is accurate, obtained, submitted to external agencies as required, and internally reported in a timely manner and presented in a format appropriate and actionable for the audience and the improvement project. The director oversees measurement and analysis of quality, safety, infection prevention and control and accreditation related measures.The System Director directs and supervises personnel, includes hiring, orientation, performance evaluation and management, providing direction, guidance and leadership for effective teamwork and motivation. The System Director works closely and corroboratively with medical, nursing and clinical leadership to implement improvement strategies to continually improve quality and safety; and establishes an annual quality and safety plan and provides a year end summary report of progress toward goals and related achievements.

Requirements

Masters Degree, Healthcare or Related Field (Required)
2 years Infection Prevention Specialist experience (Required)
2 years Supervisory experience (Required)
Certified Board Of Infection Control (CIC) - Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc., (Required)

Nice To Haves

Registered Nurse (RN) - State Department of Health Professions (Preferred)

Responsibilities

Oversees Infection Prevention and Control through identification of infectious disease processes and surveillance and epidemiologic investigation that includes: design of surveillance systems, collection, compilation, and interpretation of surveillance data, and outbreak investigation.
Identifies, develops and implements evidence-based/informed infection prevention and control policies and procedure to prevent and control the transmission of infectious agents.
Collaborates with relevant groups and agencies in planning community/facility responses to biological threats and disasters.
Oversees and implements antimicrobial stewardship.
Reviews and/or develops screening and immunization programs in collaboration with Human Resources / Employee Health.
Collaborates regarding counseling, follow up, and work restriction recommendations related to communicable diseases and/or exposures.
Collaborates with occupational health to evaluate infection prevention-related data and provide recommendations.
Collaborates with occupational health to recognize healthcare personnel who may represent a transmission risk to patients, coworkers, and communities.
Assesses risk of occupational exposure to infectious diseases (e.g., Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and blood borne pathogens).
Develops comprehensive annual infection prevention and control program and evaluation and completion of the annual plan based on results of the prior year program, new and emerging evidence and practices.
Researches and applies evidence based practices.
Assures organization wide communication and education related to infection prevention and control.
Conducts annual evaluation of the IPC Plan and annual progress toward goals, submits written evaluation and plan in a timely manner.
Recognizes and monitors elements important for a safe care environment (e.g., Heating-Ventilation-Air Conditioning, water standards, construction).
Assesses infection risks of design, construction, and renovation that impact patient care settings.
Provides recommendations to reduce the risk of infection as part of the design, construction, and renovation process.
Collaborates on the evaluation and monitoring of environmental cleaning and disinfection practices and technologies.
Collaborates with others to select and evaluate environmental disinfectant products.
Identifies and evaluates appropriate cleaning, sterilization and disinfection practices.
Collaborates with others to assess products under evaluation for their ability to be reprocessed.
Identifies and evaluates critical steps of cleaning, high level disinfection, and sterilization.
Leads and oversees facility infection prevention and control programs, assuring the structure supports required reporting and the program.
Assures ongoing and up to date knowledge of required IPC reporting programs and specific quality measures within each of the reporting programs.
Responsible for high reliability for recommended evidence based IPC practices time assuring a focus on people, process and technology to improve performance.
Assures appropriate and up to date content for facility education, training and communication related to quality management.
Aligns and coordinates the IPC program and activities with quality management, safety management and accreditation and emergency management.
Oversees IPC data management, assures data is accurate, timely and displayed in meaningful way to end users.
Serves as content expert on navigation and use (such as NHSN and Premier).
Oversees IPC data analysis, assures appropriate data visualization tools and methods are utilized, such as basic statistical techniques to present data (e.g., mean, standard deviation) and use of statistical process control chart (e.g., common and special cause variation, random variation, trend analysis).
Interprets data to support decision making (e.g., benchmarking, outcome data).
Identifies improvement opportunities based on analysis of facility data, emerging national, state and local quality of care trends and issues.
Selects appropriate quality, performance and process improvement methods and tools.
Facilitates the use of process analysis tools to display data (e.g., fishbone, Pareto chart, run chart, scatter gram, control chart).
Provides oversight of IPC related improvement projects and efforts, assuring alignment and coordination throughout the facility.
Facilitates establishment of priorities for IPC performance/ quality improvement activities and development of IPC performance/quality improvement action plans and projects.
Facilitates and promotes program/project development and evaluation.
Participates in organization wide strategic planning linking performance/quality improvement activities with strategic goals.
Identifies key performance/quality indicators and determines applicability of performance improvement models.