An Interdisciplinary Infection Control Education Intervention: Necessary But Not Sufficient

Abstract Background  Patient care environments are struggling to eradicate health care associated infections and studies of undergraduate and graduate medical trainees have revealed significant gaps in their performance of proper hand hygiene and aseptic technique (HH/AT), suggesting the need for improved curriculum. High-reliability industries have provided a model using standardization of approach and interprofessional training, and both are particularly suited to the teaching and assessment of these life-saving skills. The Infection Control Education project is a grant-funded, multi-institutional pilot launched to improve the teaching and assessment of HH/AT in our community. Methods  An interprofessional team of leaders and educators from 2 local hospital systems and 3 health colleges developed a 9-component “ICE PACK,” which includes a unanimously endorsed, detailed HH/AT checklist. This teaching and assessment module was delivered to nursing/medical student and postgraduate year 1 resident/nurse int...