Infection Control Toolbox

Introduction

Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and other easily transmittable diseases are a serious concern in most facilities today. Implementing some of the latest best practices in your physical environment can help to minimize their impact—and help you get the best outcomes from your efforts. 
 

The Infection Prevention Toolbox Contains:

Issue Briefs and Executive Summaries 

• "Contact Transmission, Part 1: The Role of Surfaces in Healthcare-Associated Infections," in this issue brief you will learn about, the role of surfaces in the chain of transmission and the epidemiology of infections, environmental conditions that affect the growth and transmission of pathogens, and cleaning and disinfecting strategies. 
• "Contact Transmission, Part 2: Materials, Design, and Cleaning," in this issue brief you will learn about, high-touch and soft surfaces and their effect on antimicrobial behavior, different cleaning mechanisms and their impact on surfaces, and an approach for structuring infection prevention teams during the design process. 
• "Clean Hands Save Lives: A Systems Approach to Improving Hand Hygiene," in this issue brief  and executive summary you will learn about the importance of hand hygiene in improving safety, quality, and economic impact, a systems approach to hand hygiene that integrates environmental, operational, and personal factors for infection prevention, and new, effective, and easy-to-implement hand hygiene measures.

Four Interviews  

• "The Need for Infection Control Specialists and Designers to Build on Common Ground," a written interview with Jesse Thomas Jacob, MD, you will learn about the three main ways pathogens are spread in a healthcare facility, why infection control specialists and designers need to work as a team for best results and ​why more research is needed to determine the impact of specific design features on infection control.
• "Incorporating Nature into Healing Environments," a video interview with David Kamp, FASLA, LF, NA 
• "Exploring Links Between Cleanliness and Infection Control Efforts in the United States and Abroad," a written interview on Infection Control With Roger Ulrich, PhD, EDAC, you will learn about the relationship between visible cleanliness and the risk of contracting a serious infection in the healthcare setting, the spread of pathogens in healthcare settings and the risk of infection in U.S. healthcare settings compared with other countries. 
• "The Built Environment’s Role in Infection Control Is Multi-Faceted," a written interview with Megan Denham, MAEd, EDAC, you will learn about strategies that disrupt pathogen transmission, the numerous reasons that sink location is important and why post-occupancy evaluations by the design/architecture community are necessary.

Three Tools

• "Cleaning Methods & Materials Characteristics Tool," this tool provides an overview of cleaning mechanisms (i.e., processes and/or technologies) and material characteristics, which in turn may influence materials selection and specification.
• "Infection Prevention Teams: Engaging Interdisciplinary Experts Tool," this tool details each stakeholder’s role and responsibilities. Use this tool as a guide when building your own infection prevention team to ensure a common understanding of each team member’s contributions.
• "Hand Hygiene Evaluation Checklist," this tool provides healthcare designers and professionals with ideas on how to address the issue of hand hygiene and infection control in facility design.

Two Project Briefs

• "Infection Control Strategies Provide Foundation for New Hospital Building," learn about the interdisciplinary infection control working group created to guide design decisions, the methods used to protect individuals from infection during the construction process, and the design strategies implemented in the new facility to reduce the spread of infections.
• "New Military Hospital Leverages Evidence-Based Design to Improve Infection Control Standards," learn about the benefits of creating multidisciplinary stakeholder teams, the complications that can arise with some antimicrobial cleaners, and the close connection between cleaning standards and furniture selection.

Webinars and EBD Journal Clubs 

• "Surfaces Matter: Evidence Based Strategies for Safe & Sustainable Lifecycle Performance for Patient & Staff Use Environments," this webinar offers recent evidence-based strategies that if followed, can contribute to reduced healthcare-associated infections, better HCAHPS scores & longer lifecycle performance.  
• "Don’t Get Bugged: Designing for Modern Infectious Diseases," this webinar will focus on a case study on the efficient design of one of the largest treatment centers for infectious diseases in the U.S. The University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston’s new six-bed bio-containment critical care unit will serve as a multifunctional patient care space that is equipped to treat patients with the most highly contagious diseases. 
• "Safety Risk Assessment 2.0," this webinar introduces the new, easier to use, online interface for The Center’s Safety Risk Assessment (SRA) toolkit, a proactive and systematic approach to designing and renovating healthcare facilities for safety. 
• "Infection Prevention During Design & Construction of Health Care Facilities," this webinar provides information on the current incidence of healthcare-associated infections in U.S. hospitals and design & construction considerations that can help prevent these outcomes. 
• "Hospital Room Design and Health Outcomes of the Aging Adult,"  this article explores how to determine differences in the rate of falls, healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs), and the degree of social isolation in hospitalized older adults admitted to private versus semiprivate rooms.
• "The Role of Facility Design in Preventing Healthcare-Associated Infection: Interventions, Conclusions, and Research Needs,"  examine how to summarize the findings and provide recommendations based on the multidisciplinary literature review and industry scan, focusing on the links between the built environment and healthcare-associated infections. To propose a research agenda in order to increase informed design decisions and advance the evidence base.

Three Blogs

• "How One Swedish Hospital Shut the Door on Infections"
• "Combining Comfort with Evidence-Based Design"
• "Three Design Choices to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Infections"
   

Design Strategies

• Environmental Surfaces and HAIs design strategies examines how healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are one of the most challenging issues in healthcare. The selection of appropriate materials and finishes, along with an understanding of cleaning processes, is part of a systems approach to reducing HAIs.
• Hand hygiene design strategies, examines how hand hygiene is the single most important component of healthcare-associated infection prevention. The physical environment plays a key role in promoting hand hygiene. Effective hand hygiene strategies integrate environmental, personal, and organizational/operational elements.    

Related Resources

Infection Control Related Resources, this list of resources is made of up of articles, books, policies, organizations, and more, related to infection control.  Use this list to learn more about this topic.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned About Infection Control, the following are compiled from research literature, case studies, interviews, and other materials to provide an overview on the topic of infection control.  

Click here to view all Infection Control Toolbox resources   

* Want to learn how to become an Affiliate+ member?  Contact Lynn Kenney, lkenney@healthdesign.org