Infection Preventionist 5

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership: Actively pursues collaboration and discussion by facilitating and leading diverse groups, welcomes opinions, respectfully challenges perspectives, and models effective listening skills. Encourages ownership of the process by group members, highlights group successes, builds a sense of shared accomplishment, and reinforces success by becoming an advocate for the group’s decisions.
• Professional Stewardship: Confidently performs a cost-quality analysis, presents to senior leadership for approval and implementation. Encourages own professional development and continuing education opportunities to maintain a broad range of expertise in patient-safety policies and industry best practices. Mentors and coaches infection prevention professionals. Leads training of newly hired Infection Prevention and Control staff. Develops and implements projects with interns/students.
• Quality Improvement: Establishes clinical metrics and outcome measures as determined by regulatory agencies or internal departments. Develops and presents reports of findings, progress, and results of improvement efforts to key stakeholders and senior leaders to foster awareness of progress and potential barriers. Advises management on highly-complex issues in infection control operations, including the development of new techniques, practices, and programs in clinical, educational, and training areas. Collaborates with key stakeholders to assess the medical center or system regarding the benefits and risks of recommended actions. Proficient in researching evidenced-based resources for risk reduction strategies; demonstrates ability to think laterally for appropriate actions.
• Infection Prevention and Control Operations: Establishes effective working relationships with stakeholders across the medical center or system to develop and implement actions to mitigate, reduce and prevent harm from potential and actual adverse events. Evaluates the organization's compliance with infection control goals and other patient safety initiatives through the collection of data. Identifies areas for improvement, develops action plans and methods for assessing internal and external compliance with departmental leaders.
• Infection Prevention and Control Informatics: Confident in their knowledge and skills to implement advanced epidemiology principles and statistics, data analysis, and the use of complex data communication and display. Understands, selects, and uses advanced statistical and quantitative techniques and principles to achieve desired data or solutions. Conducts surveillance by whole and stratified patient populations. Uses surveillance technology to develop and report data findings to guide facility strategy discussions with key stakeholders. The IP teaches and mentors others about the use of novel surveillance technology. Creatively uses the technology to generate unique and useful solutions to maximize the use of the technology.
• Research: Analyzes and interprets research, replicates research studies, and develops plans to implement and evaluate patient outcomes. Demonstrates insight into the root causes of potential risks and generates a range of solutions and courses of action based on research; eliminates irrelevant and vague information, keeps the high-quality findings in focus; questions the limits, quality, and accuracy of data; perseveres for additional details; and confirms suspect data. Seeks opportunities to collaborate with other experienced IPs to develop multisite studies and publications.

Qualifications

• Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: Displays expertise in infection control, including policies, regulations, surveillance, epidemiology, microbiology, patient care, and nursing. Conducts population-based surveillance, leverages technology for data reporting, guides strategy discussions, mentors others in novel approaches, and identifies innovative solutions to optimize technology use. Demonstrates advanced expertise in infection control data management, analysis, research, reporting, and protocol development. Skilled in leveraging statistical techniques to drive solutions, analyze research findings, validate data accuracy, and implement risk reduction strategies while evaluating patient outcomes. Actively collaborates on multisite studies and publications to advance infection control practices. Actively pursues collaboration and discussion by facilitating and leading diverse groups, welcomes opinions, respectfully challenges perspectives, and models effective listening skills. Demonstrates highly developed skills and expertise in organizational and project management. Leads teams and directs projects through from inception to completion on schedule. Implements group building strategies in order to encourage ownership of processes by group members (e.g., highlights group successes, shared accomplishment) and advocates for the group’s decisions. Actively mentors colleagues through the continuum of Infection Prevention development; identifies developmental opportunities. Demonstrates highly developed interpersonal skills, with the ability to advise and influence all levels of management and staff; strong diplomacy skills and ability to develop strong working relationships with external agencies. Demonstrates highly-developed skills in written and verbal communications, with the ability to convey the most complex clinical, technical, and educational information in a clear and concise manner, and to produce high-quality reports, documentation, and presentations. Collaborates effectively with management and staff across departments and to provide counsel and guidance on highly-complex issues of functionality, clinical quality, efficiency, and program development in all aspects of infection control. Implements group building strategies in order to encourage ownership of processes by group members (e.g., highlights group successes, shared accomplishment) and advocates for the group’s decisions. Demonstrates highly developed interpersonal skills, with the ability to advise and influence all levels of management and staff; strong diplomacy skills and ability to develop strong working relationships with external agencies. Demonstrates highly-developed skills in written and verbal communications, with the ability to convey the most complex clinical, technical, and educational information in a clear and concise manner, and to produce high-quality reports, documentation, and presentations. Collaborates effectively with management and staff across departments and to provide counsel and guidance on highly-complex issues of functionality, clinical quality, efficiency, and program development in all aspects of infection control. Ensures responsible fiscal resource allocation, evaluates costs and benefits, advocates for prudent decisions, and applies return-on-investment principles to demonstrate value. Competently performs and presents cost-quality analyses to senior leadership for approval and implementation; capably negotiates for resources necessary to accomplish goals. Capably investigates root causes of potential risks; generates a range of solutions and courses of action based upon research; demonstrates proficiency in reseraching evidence-based resources and appropriate actions, including the use of ideas from others or unconventional ideas, to develop solutions. Demonstrates proficiency in developing risk assessments for unique situations; generates a collaborative team-based atmosphere to reduce risk and improve safety outcomes. Actively participates in local, state, national and international professional organizations in leadership positions; presents results of research, application of research and findings; provides guidance/ mentorship for colleagues in those organizations. Demonstrates competency in Microsoft Word (create, format, save, edit using track changes, and print a document), Microsoft Outlook (create and send email, attach files, manage and organize messages and calendar), Excel (create a simple spreadsheet), Powerpoint (create, edit and present PowerPoint slideshows,), enter, manipulate and extract database information, and basic descriptive statistics e.g., Chi square, frequency analysis. Meets or exceeds all competencies of ICP4. Has at least 8 years of experience in infection control, preferably in an academic medical center.