Infection Preventionist Nurse - Redwoods Post Acute

Reports directly to:

Director of Nurses/Administrator

Description of Position: 

The primary purpose of your job is to plan, organize, develop, coordinate, and direct our infection control program and its activities in accordance with current federal, state, and local standards, guidelines, and regulations that govern such programs, and as may be directed by the Administrator and the Infection Control Committee to ensure that an effective infection control program is maintained at all times.

Delegation of Authority

As the Infection Control Coordinator, you are delegated the administrative authority, responsibility, and accountability necessary for carrying out your assigned duties.

Job Functions

Every effort has been made to identify the essential functions of this position.  However, it in no way states or implies that these are the only duties you will be required to perform.  The omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them from the position if the work is similar, related, or is an essential function of the position.

Duties and Responsibilities

Administrative and Surveillance Functions

• Coordinate the development and monitoring of our facility’s established infection prevention and control policies and practices
• Report information related to compliance with our facility’s established infection prevention and control policies and practices to the Administrator and Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement Committee
• Keep abreast of changes in infection prevention and control guidelines and regulations to ensure our facility’s protocols remain current and aide in preventing and controlling the spread of infections
• May designate other employees to assist him/her in the performance of these duties upon approval from the Administrator
• Plan, develop, organize, implement, evaluate, and direct our infection control program in accordance with current rules, regulations, and guidelines that govern such requirements in the long-term care facility.
• Ensure that the facility is in compliance with current CDC, OSHA, and local regulations concerning infection control or universal precautions.
• Develop, maintain, and periodically update infection control precautions and aseptic techniques that successfully correct problem areas.
• Interpret infection control policies and procedures as necessary.
• Maintain a reference library of written infection control material that will assist the facility in meeting the day-to-day needs of the isolated residents.
• Make written and oral reports/recommendations to the Administrator, as necessary/required, concerning the infection control program of this facility.
• Assist all departments in evaluating and classifying routine and job-related functions to ensure that tasks involving exposure to blood/body fluids are properly identified.
• Monitor infection control practices and procedures to ensure that all personnel are implementing our standard operating procedures for tasks involving exposure to blood/body fluids.
• Make rounds to nursing units for the purpose of case findings, review of environmental sanitation procedures, and supervision of isolation precautions/practices.
• Visit isolated residents as necessary to ensure that established isolation precautions and aseptic technique are followed.
• Ensure that laboratory support is available, including microbiological and serological services.
• Review and analyze infectious disease laboratory reports and consult with the Director of Nursing Services in developing the care plan for assuring that aseptic techniques are implemented.
• Assist in developing and implementing guidelines for the decontamination and sterilization activities performed in the facility.
• Ensure that all personnel follow established procedures for the disposal and removal of infective and contaminated materials from the facility.
• Prepare monthly summaries of all resident/personnel infections, corrective action taken, and the results of the corrective action.  Submit copies to the Administrator and Director of Nursing Services.
• Prepare summaries of special investigations on the occurrence of nosocomial and community-acquired infections.
• Provide the Director of Nursing Services with a report of pertinent findings and recommendations pertaining to nosocomial infection.
• Maintain a written record of all residents and employees who have nosocomial infections.
• Participate in surveys of possible carriers among residents and personnel, and in tracing possible sources of infection within the facility.
• Assist the Director of Laundry Services in developing infection control procedures for the handling of clean and soiled laundry/linen, equipment cleaning, etc.
• Participate in facility surveys (inspections) made by authorized government agencies.
• Assist the Discharge Planning Coordinator in developing and implementing discharge plans for the resident in isolation or on infection control precautions.
• Assist in the development and implementation of a facility-wide TB management control program.
• Report all reportable diseases to the county and state health departments.
• Perform administrative duties such as completing medical forms, reports, evaluations, studies, charting, etc., as necessary.

Committee Functions

• Serve on, participate in, and attend Infection Control Committee meetings.
• Represent the Infection Control Committee as required.
• Assist the Infection Control Committee in evaluating and revising our infection control practices and aseptic technique to ensure continued sanitation practices are maintained throughout the facility.
• Assist the Infection Control Committee in establishing the criteria for classifying all routine and reasonably anticipated job-related tasks to ensure that tasks involving exposure to blood/body fluids are properly identified and recorded.
• Provide the Infection Control Committee with written and oral reports concerning all nosocomial infections within the facility.
• Ensure that major changes in our cleaning products or techniques in using our cleaning products are approved by the Committee.
• Assist in evaluating and implementing recommendations from the Infection Control Committee.
• Provide information relative to TB assessment and make recommendations concerning the protocols to following isolating TB cases.

Personnel Functions

• Develop and implement a practical system of detecting, evaluating, recording, and reporting infections that originate with facility personnel.
• Provide employees with information concerning the facility’s policies governing hepatitis B vaccinations.
• Assist in establishing the TB testing and recordkeeping protocols for all employees.
• Orient new employees to the importance of infection control policies and procedures, personal hygiene, hand washing techniques, etc., as well as the employee’s responsibility in following our established procedures for tasks involving exposure to blood/body fluids.
• Report occupational exposures to blood, body fluids, infectious materials, and hazardous chemicals in accordance with facility’s policies and procedures governing accidents and incidents.
• Develop and maintain a good working rapport with all department directors and personnel to ensure that infection control services and activities can be properly maintained to meet the needs of the residents.
• Create and maintain an atmosphere of warmth, personal interest and positive emphasis, as well as a calm environment throughout the facility.
• Make appropriate reports to the Administrator and/or Director of Nursing Services as necessary.

Nursing Care and Consultation Functions

• Participate in the interviewing and selection of residents for admission to the facility.
• Ensure that all nursing service personnel follow established isolation precautions and aseptic technique to include universal precautions.
• Interview residents or family members and explain isolation and universal precautions as necessary.
• Make rounds with physicians as necessary.
• Encourage attending physicians to record and sign progress notes, physicians’ orders, etc., on a timely basis and in accordance with current regulations.
• Monitor medication passes and treatments to ensure that appropriate hand washing techniques are being followed in the handling and administering of drugs, medications, and treatments.
• Review nurses’ notes of those residents in/on isolation precautions to ensure tat they are informative and descriptive of the nursing care being provided and that they reflect the resident’s response to the care.
• Assist nursing service personnel in performing nursing care procedures as necessary.
• Obtain culture samples in accordance with our established procedures.
• Provide direct nursing care as necessary.

Staff Development

• Develop and participate in the planning, conducting, and scheduling of timely in-service training classes and educational programs that provide instructions on “how to do the job” for all facility personnel.
• Develop, implement, and maintain an effective orientation program that orients the new employees to our infection control and employee health program.
• Assist support services in developing, implementing, and conducting in-service training programs relative to infection control.
• Assist the Director of Staff Development in developing annual OSHA and CDC in-service training programs for hazard communication, TB management, and bloodborne pathogens standard.
• Develop a training program for all personnel required to perform tasks involving exposure to blood/body fluids.
• Attend and participate in continuing educational programs designed to keep you abreast of changes in your profession, as well as to maintain your license on a current status.

Equipment and Supply Functions

• Recommend to the Director of Nursing Services the equipment and supply needs for maintaining an effective infection control program.
• Ensure that a stock level of medical supplies, equipment, etc., is maintained on premises at all times to adequately meet the needs of the resident.
• Assist the maintenance director in developing a preventive maintenance program for maintaining the nursing department’s equipment and supplies in a safe and operable manner. Develop and implement procedures that ensure nursing service supplies are used in an efficient manner to avoid waste.
• Ensure that established policies governing the labeling or tagging of contaminated equipment are followed when such equipment must be sent for repair or decontamination.

Care Plan Functions

• Assist in the development, implementation, and maintenance of a written plan of care (preliminary and comprehensive) for each resident in isolation or on infection control precautions that identifies the problem/needs of the resident, indicates the care to be given, goals to be accomplished, and which professional service is responsible for each element of care.
• Insofar as practical, encourage the resident to participate in the development and review of his/her plan of care and explain to the resident the need to follow infection control practices and universal precautions.
• Assist in the scheduling of care plans to be presented and discussed at each committee meeting in relation to prevention and control of infectious diseases.
• Ensure that all personnel involved in providing care to the resident are aware of the care plan.
• Ensure that the care plan is reviewed prior to administering daily care to the isolated resident or prior to performing nursing care procedures involving exposure to blood/body fluids.
• Review nurses’ notes to determine if the care plan is being followed.
• Review and revise care plans as necessary, but at least quarterly.
• Develop and maintain a good rapport with all services involved with the care plan to ensure that a team effort is achieved in developing the resident’s total regimen of care in preventing and controlling infections.

Resident Rights

• Maintain the confidentiality of all resident care information.
• Explain to the resident the necessity of isolation and/or universal precautions.
• Ensure that all nursing service personnel are knowledgeable of the residents’ rights, including the right to refuse treatment.
• Monitor nursing care to ensure that all residents are treated fairly, and with kindness, dignity, and respect while in isolation or on universal precautions.
• Ensure that all nursing care is provided in privacy and that nursing service personnel knock before entering the resident’s room.
• Review complaints and grievances made by the resident and make a written/oral report to the Director of Nursing Services indicating what action(s) were taken to resolve the complaint or grievance.  Follow the facility's established procedures.
• Maintain a written record of the resident’s complaints and/or grievances that indicates the action taken to resolve the complaint and the current status of the complaint. Report and investigate all allegations of resident abuse and/or misappropriation of resident property.
• Ensure that nursing staff personnel honor the resident’s refusal of treatment requests.  Ensure that such requests are in accordance with the facility’s policies governing advance directives.

Safety and Sanitation

• Identify, evaluate, and classify routine and job-related functions to ensure that tasks in which there is potential exposure to blood/body fluids are properly identified and recorded.
• Assist department directors in developing policies and procedures to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases.
• Ensure that all personnel performing tasks that involve potential exposure to blood/body fluids participate in appropriate in-service training programs prior to performing such tasks. 
• Ensure that an adequate supply of personal protective equipment is on hand and readily available to personnel who perform procedures that involve exposure to blood or body fluids.
• Assist in developing policies and procedures in the handling and disposal of needles and other sharp instruments.
• Assist the maintenance department in developing and implementing waste disposal policies and procedures for infectious waste supplies.

Miscellaneous

• Assess and/or evaluate new or improved resident care products or procedures.
• Provide counseling for employee testing mandate required for HBV and TB exposure and maintain in confidential manner.
• Maintain resident/employee exposure reports in a confidential manner. 

Working Conditions

• Works in office area(s) as well as throughout the facility.
• Moves intermittently during working hours.
• Is subject to frequent interruptions.
• Is involved with residents, personnel, visitors, government agencies/personnel, etc. under all conditions and circumstances.
• Is subject to hostile and emotionally upset residents, family members, personnel, and visitors.
• Communicates with the medical staff, nursing personnel, and other department supervisors.
• Works beyond normal working hours and on weekends and holidays when necessary.
• Is subject to call-back during emergency conditions (e.g., severe weather, evacuation, post-disaster, etc.).
• Attends and participates in continuing educational programs.
• Is subject to injury from falls, burns from equipment, odors, etc., throughout the work day, as well as to reactions from dust, disinfectants, tobacco smoke, and other air contaminants.
• Is subject to exposure to infectious waste, diseases, conditions, etc., including TB and the AIDS and Hepatitis B viruses
• May be subject to the handling of and exposure to hazardous chemicals.
• Maintains a liaison with the residents, their families, support departments, etc., to adequately plan for the residents’ needs in relation to prevention and control of infections. 

Qualifications for the Position

Education

• Must possess, as a minimum, a Nursing Degree from an accredited college or university.

Experience

• Must have, as a minimum 1 year as a charge nurse in a long-term care facility 

Specific Requirements

• Must possess a current, unencumbered, active license to practice as a Nurse in the state.
• Must be able to read, write, speak, and understand the English language
• Must possess the ability to make independent decisions when circumstances warrant such action.
• Must possess the ability to deal tactfully with personnel, residents, family members, visitors, government agencies/personnel and the general public.
• Must be knowledgeable of nursing and medical practices and procedures, as well as laws, regulations, and guidelines that pertain to long-term car and infection control, to include universal precautions.
• Must possess leadership and supervisory ability and the willingness to work harmoniously with other personnel.
• Must be willing to seek out new methods and principles and be willing to incorporate them into existing training practices.
• Must possess the ability to plan, organize, develop, implement, and interpret the programs, goals, objectives, policies and procedures, etc., that are necessary for preventing and controlling infections, to include the establishing of universal precautions.
• Must have patience, tact, a cheerful disposition and enthusiasm, as well as the willingness to handle difficult residents and staff.
• Must be willing to seek out new methods and principles and be willing to incorporate them into existing nursing practices.
• Must be able to relate information concerning a resident’s condition.
• Must not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals in the workplace.

Physical and Sensory Requirements (With or Without the Aid of Mechanical Devices)

• Must be able to move intermittently throughout the workday.
• Must be able to speak and write the English language in an understandable manner.
• Must be able to cope with the mental and emotional stress of the position.
• Must be able to see and hear or use prosthetics that will enable these senses to function adequately to ensure that the requirements of this position can be fully met.
• Must function independently, and have flexibility, personal integrity, and the ability to work effectively with residents, personnel, and support agencies.
• Must meet the general health requirements set forth by the policies of this facility which include a medical and physical examination.]Must be able to relate to and work with the ill, disabled, elderly, emotionally upset, and at time, hostile people within the facility.
• Must be able to relate to and work with the ill, disabled, elderly, emotionally upset, and at times, hostile people within the facility.
• Must be able to push, pull, move, and/or lift a minimum of 40 pound to a minimum height of 4 feet and be able to push, pull, move, and /or carry such weight a minimum distance of 10 feet.
• Must be willing to perform tasks that may involve exposure to the resident’s blood/body fluids.
• May be necessary to assist in the evacuation of residents during emergency situations.