Healthcare providers celebrating. Image sourced from Canva.

Your Infection Prevention Week Game Plan Starts Here

International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW) is October 19–25! It is a great time to celebrate the people who make infection prevention happen. Get your team in the game with activities that build skills, raise awareness, and keep others safe.

What to Expect:

International Infection Prevention Week: Start with the official IIPW site. Be on the lookout for resources for this year’s theme, Generations of Infection Prevention: PAST. PRESENT. PROTECTED.

VIPTA Resource Library: Build your game plan with resources for each daily focus. Monday covers sterile processing, TB, and outbreaks. Tuesday focuses on hand hygiene. Wednesday covers vaccines and antibiotics. Thursday focuses on environment of care. Finish the week on Friday with technology.

VDH Infection Prevention Training Power Tools: Add some fun with ready-to-use puzzles, coloring pages, games, and step-by-step training guides.

Create your own: Make a custom puzzle or Wordle using key words from your IIPW activities.

How to use it:

Make a daily play: Pick one resource for each day. Send it to unit leaders with a few discussion points or trivia questions to share with staff. (Hack: A Project Firstline Micro-Learn is ready to go if you don’t want to make something new.)
Set up a game station: Put puzzles, coloring pages, or trivia in a break room or staff area. Add a prize drawing to boost play.
Cheer on your team: Use Cheers for Peers certificates to thank staff for great infection prevention work. Or, create an IIPW Kudos Wall where staff can leave notes or shout outs to celebrate each other.

Target Audience: Foundational & Intermediate IPC Education Level

Guidance, Recommendations, & Regulatory Updates

VIPTA members track guidance and regulation resources to share source documents that guide infection prevention and control practices for public health staff and clinical and non-clinical healthcare personnel.

The date of the regulation or guidance update is included in each post. Please check linked content to be sure it is the most up to date and recommended practice.

CDC: Conjunctivitis (09/11/2026)

CDC

Any Practice Setting

The CDC recommends excluding healthcare personnel with suspected or confirmed infectious conjunctivitis, including epidemic keratoconjunctivitis (EKC), from work for the duration of their symptoms. These recommendations emphasize strict hand hygiene, appropriate cleaning and disinfection of surfaces and shared medical equipment, and prompt identification and management of cases to prevent transmission and healthcare-associated outbreaks.

CDC: Viral Respiratory Infections (09/11/2026)

CDC

Any Practice Setting

The CDC provides updated recommendations for managing healthcare personnel exposed to or infected with viral respiratory infections, including work restrictions, symptom monitoring, and source control. Asymptomatic exposed personnel may continue working with source control through at least five days after their last exposure, while infected personnel should be excluded from work for at least three days and meet additional symptom-based return-to-work criteria, followed by source control through at least day seven.

CDC: Preventing Respiratory Infections in the Workplace (08/28/2026)

CDC

Any Practice Setting

The CDC provides recommendations to help employers prevent and respond to respiratory infections in the workplace through improved ventilation, engineering controls, environmental cleaning and disinfection, and policies that encourage sick employees to stay home. These recommendations also emphasize using respiratory illness surveillance data to inform workplace prevention strategies, including masking and remote work, to reduce transmission and protect employee health.

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA)

August 10, 2026 August 12, 2026 SHEA

Infection Prevention and Control of Candida auris in Pediatric Settings (6/23/2026) The guidance recommends identifying at-risk pediatric patients through targeted screening, using appropriate isolation and room-placement precautions, and coordinating closely with infection prevention and public health partners when Candida auris is suspected or confirmed. It also emphasizes prevention through meticulous hand hygiene, effective environmental cleaning and disinfection, and careful...

Reinforcing Healthy Behaviors: A Special Dialysis Christmas Shop at UVA Zions Crossroads

Promoting healthy habits in chronic disease patients can be challenging, but UVA Zions Crossroads Dialysis offers a creative example. Administrative Assistant S.P. and Registered Dietician K.G. planned and led a unique Dialysis Christmas Shop to encourage positive behaviors.

Planning and Participation: The event takes over a year to organize and requires stable staffing, so it isn’t held every year. About 90% of the shop’s items are new, sourced through yard sales, staff donations (often re-gifted), and include practical gifts like blenders, grills, jackets, tools, and children’s presents for grandparents.

Purpose and Pricing: Many dialysis patients have limited incomes, and the holidays can be stressful. Items are priced affordably so everyone can participate. Some patients even share leftover “dialysis dollars” to help others buy special gifts.

Earning ‘Dialysis Dollars’: Starting in September, patients earn ‘dialysis dollars’ by demonstrating healthy behaviors, including:

Controlling phosphorus levels (monthly measured)
Managing fluid intake (reviewed by K.G. over 7 treatments)
Consistently attending dialysis sessions
Staying for the full treatment time
Completing an educational crossword puzzle

Patients can earn up to $15, and these dollars cannot be taken away, even if unexpected events occur (hospitalization, surgery, transportation issues). Education is provided on why these behaviors matter.

Impact: Three motivated patients earned the full $15 for shopping, and most of the 44 patients participated. Extra items were raffled off to spread holiday cheer.

This initiative shows that positive reinforcement can bring joy and promote health in a chronic disease community during the holidays.

Dialysis Christmas Shop