renewed emphasis on hand hygiene and enhanced environmental
cleaning and disinfection is infection prevention best practices that
stick around and lead to decreased healthcare-acquired infections and
fewer SSIs," says Ms. Spencer.
Of course, there's a danger of returning to the status quo once
things finally settle down. "After the H1N1 outbreak, a lot of health-
care professionals went back to their old habits," says Ms. Spencer.
She also fears that infection prevention departments that hired extra
staff — additions that finally brought the departments to adequate
staffing levels — will be hit with layoffs as soon as the wave of
COVID-19 patients subsides. And in high-volume, fast-paced facilities
there will always be pressures to cut corners.
"When there are time pressures, it's human nature for administra-
tors to want to say, 'Hurry up, get that surface disinfecting done' even
if the proper dwell time isn't being reached," says Ms. Blackwell. "But
it's our job to do what's right, even if it's the hardest thing to do."
Changes ahead
We're already seeing plenty of patient screening changes as a result of
the coronavirus pandemic. Outpatient centers that are performing
emergent procedures are not only aggressively monitoring patients,
but also staff. "I urge facilities to monitor their own staff in the same
way they monitor patients," says Ms. Blackwell. "Run through the
questionnaire every time they come in for work, take temperatures
using a consistent method or, if you can't, document exactly what you
did."
Ms. Blackwell recommends all outpatient facilities add COVID-19
screening questions to pre-op phone calls and says you shouldn't
expect the screening practices to disappear when the spread of the
virus subsides. "Moving forward, we're going to continue to monitor
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