When an infection control program runs across multiple facilities, policies rarely stay in sync for long. Staff turnover, new products, and site-specific workarounds pull written policies and procedures further from what’s happening in the facility. By the time a survey date lands on the calendar, the gap between policy and practice is often bigger than anyone realized.
That was the situation for a multi-site outpatient surgery network APIC Consulting recently supported. Three ambulatory surgery centers had developed separate versions of their IPC policies, and an accreditation survey was less than three months away. The in-house IP team knew what needed to be done, but lacked the bandwidth and specialized expertise to complete the work alone.
APIC Consulting brought in a CIC®-certified consultant for a dedicated 40-hour engagement built around the client’s survey timeline. The consultant started by comparing existing policies against current CMS, accreditation, and state regulatory standards to find the highest-risk gaps, then used APIC’s PolicyPro to build a single standardized set that replaced the facility-by-facility variation. Frontline staff were trained on what had changed, and the consultant stayed available through the weeks before the survey for coaching and questions.
The Result: IPC Policy and Procedure Alignment Before Survey Day
The client passed the accreditation survey with no major findings. Each facility adopted the same aligned policy set, staff were trained on the updates, and the in-house team was prepared to maintain and update the policies and procedures going forward.
Download the case study to see the full breakdown of how the engagement worked, and what focused IPC expertise can do when a policy project has outgrown your team’s bandwidth.
