EH&E and Boston Children’s Hospital to Present at the APIC 2024 Annual Conference, June 3
Cross-functional Water Risk Assessment: Deeper Dive into Water Systems and Reservoirs
Bryan Connors, MS, CIH, HEM
Managing Principal Consultant, Healthcare
Environmental Health & Engineering
Lindsay K. Weir, MPH, CIC
Lead Infection Preventionist/Infection Preventionist III
Boston Children’s Hospital
Limiting the water infection control risk assessment (WICRA) to one discipline does not fully capture patient risks. It can result in under or overestimating risk, with negative consequences for patient safety and hospital resources. Infection prevention must partner with facilities and water management experts to harness knowledge of water system complexities.
Attendees will learn how a pediatric hospital used a cross-functional approach to tailor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) WICRA tool to examine their water system from the source to endpoints. This approach improved the accuracy and outcome of the risk assessment and scoring, allowing the team to prioritize control measures based on the likely impact to patient care areas and end-use devices.
Attend this session to:
- Formulate an understanding of infection risks related to hospital water systems by examining water from the point of entry to endpoint, including particular risks posed by subsystems in plumbing systems.
- Discuss the subsystems that comprise hospital water plumbing systems. This will help participants communicate with facility management on strategies to prevent infections and hypothesize sources of infection during an outbreak.
- Integrate water systems and infection prevention and control knowledge to identify and rank risk using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Water Infection Control Risk Assessment.
APIC 24 Annual Conference and Exhibition
June 3, 2024
2:30-3:30 PM CST
San Antonio, TX
Learn more and register