HAI Advisory Group

Virginia Healthcare-Associated Infections Advisory Group (VHAG)

The Virginia Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Advisory Group is a voluntary, statewide, multidisciplinary group that coordinates the efforts of the Commonwealth’s HAI stakeholders to align strategies, share information and resources, and produce synergies that will accelerate statewide and individual institutional progress in preventing HAIs and antimicrobial resistance (AR).

The group is co-led by the 1) Virginia Department of Health, 2) Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, and 3) Health Quality Innovators, the Virginia Quality Innovation Network – Quality Improvement Organization.

Annual Priority Workgroup

Every year, this workgroup decides on a specific HAI topic of concern that has statewide implications. The annual priority for 2019 is standing up the Virginia Frontline Provider Infectious Disease Advisors group. The goal is to get feedback from frontline providers on the challenges of working with patients and staff on the prevention and control of multidrug-resistant organisms. Find out more information and see how to sign up here.

Antibiotic Stewardship Workgroup

The Antibiotic Stewardship workgroup aims to ensure the appropriate use of antibiotics, improve patient outcomes, decrease adverse effects, reduce antimicrobial resistance, and decrease health care costs.

Infection Prevention Education Workgroup

This workgroup focuses on providing education and trainings for healthcare workers in order to provide tools and resources to help decrease HAIs. It also assists the other workgroups with educational support on current priority issues and healthcare concerns related to HAIs.

Purpose & Mission

Purpose and Mission

Purpose:
The Virginia Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Advisory Group is a voluntary, statewide, multidisciplinary group that coordinates the efforts of the Commonwealth’s HAI stakeholders to align strategies, share information and resources, and produce synergies that will accelerate statewide and individual institutional progress in preventing HAIs and antimicrobial resistance (AR). The group includes persons with expertise in the surveillance, prevention, and control of healthcare-associated infections, including representation from the Virginia Department of Health and other state agencies, Health Quality Innovators (HQI), the Virginia Quality Innovation Network – Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO), the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology – Virginia Chapter (APIC-VA), healthcare providers, infection preventionists, pharmacists, consumers, and physician champions.

Mission:
The mission of the Virginia HAI Advisory Group is to improve health outcomes in all of Virginia’s healthcare settings, with the ultimate goal of preventing HAIs and AR. We will accomplish this mission by convening stakeholders to:

Identify and recommend evidence-based best practices for monitoring and preventing targeted HAIs, including strategies for reporting, surveillance and education of providers and consumers;
Encourage healthcare settings to adopt high reliability practices and principles to promote a culture of safety and sustain improvements over time; and
Proactively address emerging HAI and AR topics.

Roles of the HAI Advisory Group Members:

Serve as leaders for HAI and AR prevention in Virginia.
Provide input and updates to the state HAI plan and stakeholder initiatives.
Identify specific HAI prevention targets for Virginia consistent with the priorities established by
the Department of Health and Human Services and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Develop initiatives to meet target goals. Recommend strategies for translating evidence based guidelines into practice in Virginia’s healthcare settings.
Raise awareness statewide about the importance of HAI and AR prevention progress, areas for improvement, and opportunities for collaboration and participation.
Align strategies to address HAIs and AR by facilitating collaboration, thus providing synergy among participating stakeholders and the organizations they represent.
Ensure consistent, unified messaging by HAI stakeholder organizations, avoid duplication of effort, and maximize the effective use of available resources.

HAI Advisory Group Membership

Yearly Accomplishments

Trainings

Resources for Healthcare Professionals