As more is understood about the causes of hospital acquired illnesses, so is the impact of the physical environment on the risks posed to patients. Whether it is ensuring that critical systems are properly maintained or providing their staff with proper training, todays Facility Manager plays a key role in infection prevention. This may seem a bit amazing when most of us would have never perceived such an important role just a few years ago.

Contemporary Facility Managers must understand a bit of the Infection Preventionists world; what types of organisms pose the greatest risks, what can we do to protect our patients, our staff, our visitors, in other words, how can we prevent these illnesses rather than simply control them. The data suggests that our greatest risks come from organisms that can be airborne, waterborne, or surface bound; therefore, it is important to have a general knowledge of these pathogens, and their transmission methods. Armed with this knowledge, the Facility Manager will be better prepared to play their role in prevention.

In addition to understanding the organisms, understanding the varying levels of risks posed to different patient populations is crucial. Everyone understands the concerns for patients undergoing surgery, but every hospital is likely to have patients that are at as much, or greater risk scattered throughout or traveling about their facility. Dialysis patients, burn victims, transplant patients among others are all prone to hospital acquired illnesses. For them, even the most mundane task could prove deadly. Knowing where immunocompromised patients are normally housed and having a process to communicate times when one may be in an unusual area are critically important and these can only be accomplished by working closely with our clinical counterparts and understanding each others roles within the process. To lay a blanket infection control policy across an entire organization is similar to requiring the same preventative maintenance level for every piece of equipment in the building. It is, quite simply, overkill. It is human nature to err on the conservative, but experience has shown that policies can be so aggressive that they are difficult if not impossible to enforce. Therefore, it makes sense to know in which areas the risks are high versus those where the risks are low, then a much more reasonable plan can be developed.

A good infection control policy will contain not only the areas of high risk, but also the activities that create levels of high risk, as some activities alone may be of enough concern to warrant some type of protection. The key is to develop policies and procedures that both the facilities staff and infection prevention can agree upon and then provide the training necessary to ensure that they are properly implemented. One effective strategy has been to add infection control steps as tasks within the computerized maintenance management system. This provides constant reminders to those who must make the program work - the staff.

Understanding the different risks, mitigation strategies, and high-risk activities will help any Facility Manager become a better partner in the fight to reduce hospital acquired illnesses, a battle that everyone in healthcare should join. In this case, an ounce of prevention can save more than a pound of cure, it can save lives.