Program Manager, Infection Prevention

Cayuga Health System•City of Ithaca, NY

1d•$90,000 - $115,000•Remote

About The Position

The Program Manager of Infection Prevention provides day-to-day leadership and oversight of the Infection Prevention program across Centralus Health hospitals and clinics. This role ensures consistent application of evidence-based practices, accurate surveillance, and compliance with Joint Commission, federal, and state regulations. Working in close partnership with the System Director of Infection Prevention, the IP Medical Director, and multidisciplinary leaders, the Program Manager of Infection Prevention holds responsibility for validating and providing final sign-off on Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HACs) and reportable events. The Program Manager of Infection Prevention will actively mentor Infection Preventionists, ensuring professional development and skillset advancement. The candidate collaborates with leaders in Nursing, Provider Services, Clinical Data, Education, and Revenue Optimization to align infection prevention goals with enterprise-wide performance, safety, and financial objectives.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Nursing, Epidemiology, Microbiology, Public Health, or related health sciences.
Certification in Infection Control (CIC®) required (or must obtain within 1 year of hire).
5+ years of progressive infection prevention experience, with at least 2 years in a leadership, supervisory, or system-level role.
Demonstrated ability to design, facilitate, and sustain improvement teams across hospitals and clinics, ensuring alignment with system priorities and achievement of measurable performance goals.

Nice To Haves

Advanced training or coursework in epidemiology, biostatistics, or related fields is beneficial.
Micro or Credentials in data analytics.
Demonstrated expertise in surveillance, validation, and reduction of HACs.
Strong knowledge of NHSN reporting, EHR surveillance tools, and CMS/Joint Commission standards.
Proven ability to present complex data to diverse audiences, including executives, frontline teams, and external regulators.
Experience with NHSN, EHR surveillance tools (Epic Bugsy, Theradoc, etc.), and advanced Excel or data visualization platforms (Tableau, Power BI, Qlik).

Responsibilities

Provide direct leadership and supervision to Infection Preventionists, including oversight of daily workflows, performance evaluation, and professional development.
Validate surveillance findings and definitions, ensuring final case sign-off in conjunction with the IP Medical Director to maintain accuracy in NHSN and regulatory reporting. Leads exercises of inter-rater reliability among Infection Preventionists to further enhance the integrity of surveillance and reporting.
Ensure compliance with Joint Commission standards, CMS Conditions of Participation, and state-level regulatory requirements across all facilities. The candidate will be responsible, consulted and informed on Infection Prevention Leadership across care settings, requiring an understanding of all areas of potential risk across Centralus Health.
Partner with the Director of Clinical Data, CMO for Revenue Optimization, and Nursing/Provider leadership to ensure timely and accurate reporting, analysis, and intervention planning.
Closely collaborates the Medical Director to direct collaborative improvements with Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI), Coding, Quality and Revenue Optimization in order to accurately depict care in the Medical Record.
Collaborate with Clinical Education to design, deliver, and reinforce training programs that advance infection prevention best practices system-wide.
Collaborates with Risk Management, Patient Safety and Claims management to ensure escalation of findings that may warrant Peer Review, Incident Reporting, and/or Potentially Compensable Events (PCE).
Lead operational huddles, post-exposure reviews, and data-driven interventions, ensuring lessons learned are translated into sustainable practice change utilizing the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) Action Hierarchy.
Engage with site leaders to analyze variation across entities, using stratified data provided by the Clinical Data team (i.e. - unit, service line, population) to identify opportunities for improvement.
In partnership with the Director, Infection Prevention and the Sr. Director, Quality Outcomes/ACQO, the Program Manager of Infection Prevention will monitor, track, and report HAC performance and associated financial/brand implications in collaboration with Finance and Marketing/Communications.
Serve as an escalation point for complex infection prevention issues, facilitating alignment across disciplines and ensuring organizational readiness for surveys and audits.
Other duties as assigned.