MDS Alert

Question: Are there minimum training areas for complying with infection prevention and control requirements?

New York Subscriber

Answer: “It’s unlikely nursing homes haven’t been providing staff with infection control training, but now we know the minimum areas that need to be addressed in your training program,” says Linda Elizaitis, RN, RAC-CT, BS, president and founder of CMS Compliance Group in Melville, New York.

Still, everyone who works in a nursing home, including contracted staff and volunteers, should be trained formally in infection control — and their participation should be tracked.

Elizaitis explains that training programs should address, at the minimum:

• Surveillance to identify communicable disease/infection before spread;
• Reporting (including designated person to whom reports should be made) of communicable disease/infection, if found; and
• Knowledge of precautions that are both standard and transmission-based; and
• Policies that focus on occupational health and encourage staff to self-report illness or exposure, as well as enforcing work restrictions.

She notes that infection control training programs should not be considered set in stone and should be revised when there are changes to or demanded by the facility assessment, resident population, physical environment, national infection prevention and control standards, community risk, or staff turnover.