Healthcare-Associated Infections and Prevention (HAI)
Patients may acquire a healthcare-associated infection (HAI) while receiving treatment for medical or surgical conditions in any care setting, including hospitals, same-day surgery centers, outpatient clinics and long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities.
Iowa HHS and community partners are working together to reduce preventable HAIs in our state.
Infection Prevention Services
Experts from Iowa HHS provide the latest education, evaluation and planning resources to help hospitals and other healthcare facilities improve infection prevention and control programs.
Services are consultative – not regulatory or punitive – and always free of charge. To ask questions or schedule a service, email hai-ar@hhs.iowa.gov.
List items for Iowa HHS HAI Program Contacts
An experienced team of clinical and public health professionals leads the Iowa HHS HAI program. They work with infection prevention partners to reduce the occurrence of HAIs in acute, ambulatory and long-term care healthcare facilities across Iowa.
Service hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For questions or to schedule a service, email hai-ar@hhs.iowa.gov
Regional Nurse Clinicians
Working to protect and preserve Iowans’ health and safety, nurse clinicians offer consultation, education and training, assessments, technical assistance and more to hospitals and clinics, long-term care facilities, surgery centers and congregate living settings in each of Iowa’s 99 counties.
Improve your infection prevention and control program by scheduling a free Infection Control Assessment and Response (ICAR) on-site visit.
During the visit, an Iowa HHS HAI nurse clinician, utilizing CDC’s ICAR tools, will assess current HAI risks and infection mitigation strategies at your hospital, clinic or long-term care facility. The visits are non-regulatory and non-punitive.
You will also receive at no charge:
A comprehensive assessment of your existing program.
A customized evaluation of infection prevention strengths and opportunities for your reference only.
Guidance on your current infection prevention and control policies, quality improvement priorities and planning activities.
The most up-to-date resources, tools and training tailored to your needs.
A supportive, ongoing relationship with your Iowa HHS HAI nurse clinician for as long as you want to use them as a resource.
Iowa HHS HAI nurse clinicians provide one-on-one technical support, assist with onboarding new staff, and offer guidance on meeting quality standards for the CDC’s web-based National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). The NHSN is the most widely used tracking system in the United States for reporting HAIs and healthcare personnel immunizations.
The Iowa HHS HAI program team hosts two 30-minute virtual open office hour sessions each month: one for providers in long-term care (nursing home) settings and one for providers in acute care (hospital) settings.
These informal meetings allow healthcare providers to ask questions, request information and receive guidance. To register to participate in open office hours, email hai-ar@hhs.iowa.gov.
Infection Prevention Education and Training Resources
Access the tools and information below to build awareness and understanding within your facility of proper practices to help prevent and control HAIs.
Infection Prevention Education and Training Resources
Access the tools and information below to build awareness and understanding within your facility of proper practices to help prevent and control HAIs.
Project Firstline is an initiative of Iowa HHS in cooperation with the CDC to provide infection control education to all frontline healthcare workers — improving their skills and success in protecting patients, colleagues, their communities and themselves from infectious disease.
Iowa HHS developed a series of educational posters and videos in collaboration with the Iowa Institute of Public Health Research and Policy at the University of Iowa to promote proper infection control practices.
Find these materials on the Iowa HHS Project Firstline page and use them to educate everyone entering a healthcare facility, regardless of their role, relationship to a patient, or whether they provide direct patient care.
States Targeting Reduction in Infections via Engagement
National infection prevention experts, led by the Health Research and Educational Trust, developed the curriculum for the CDC initiative States Targeting Reduction in Infections via Engagement (STRIVE). The courses cover both technical and foundational elements of HAI prevention.
The free, specialized course is made up of 23 modules and sub-modules that learners can complete in any order and over multiple sessions. It covers:
Core activities for effective infection prevention and control programs.
Recommended practices to reduce pathogen transmission, HAIs and antibiotic resistance.
Implementation Resources
The CDC's website provides examples of resources introduced and explained within the curriculum, such as audit tools, policy and procedure templates, and outbreak investigation tools.
Resources to help healthcare providers implement standard and transmission-based precautions to prevent infections are available on the CDC’s website.
These tools are organized by:
Infection
Pathogen
Protection of healthcare workers
Setting
Reporting
The Iowa HHS requires reporting all disease outbreaks to protect healthcare workers, patients, families and communities.
