VIPTA is a statewide infection prevention and control education collaborative, led by the Virginia Healthcare-Associated Infections Advisory Group. Through partnership, VIPTA curates IPC resources for Virginia’s healthcare, congregate care, and public health settings.
It’s Not Just a Room Turnover: It’s Infection Prevention
Did you know that patients admitted to rooms where the previous occupant had a multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) face a higher risk of acquiring that same organism? Every day, environmental services (EVS) professionals work alongside frontline healthcare staff to reduce this risk and protect patients and residents. When we support EVS teams, we strengthen the entire infection prevention system.
What to Expect and How to Use It: With some EVS staff receiving as little as three days of training, and 83% learning on the job, education needs to be quick, practical, and built into their daily workflow.
- Onboarding: Project Firstline Training Toolkit for Environmental Services (EVS) Staff – A comprehensive training plan that builds both the why and the how, helping EVS staff confidently step into their role as essential infection prevention team members.
- New Refreshers: CDC EVS Microlearns – Quick, practical micro-learns covering key topics like contact time, when to change gloves, and maintaining clean and safe EVS carts, perfect for reinforcing skills in just a few minutes.
- New Observation & Support: VDH Daily Room Cleaning Checklist – A simple, structured checklist to guide room cleaning from start to finish, helping standardize workflows and ensure no critical steps are missed.
Target Audience: Essential IPC Education Level
Cheers for Every Infection Prevention Win
This month let’s shine a light on the best practices that add up to big wins. Infection prevention is a team sport, and October is a perfect time to celebrate the everyday wins that keep patients, residents, and staff safe. There’s a new Cheers for Peers award certificate you can download and use right now from VIPTA:
A step-by-step guide to spread “cheer” this month.
- Pick a positive infection prevention accomplishment you want to celebrate.
- Customize and print the new Cheers for Peers certificate (or print a few blank ones to take on rounds).
- Share the certificate with a team member who is doing a great job preventing infections in your healthcare setting. Snap a picture if they’re ok with it.
- Brag on them on a unit board, your intranet, a team huddle, or any space meaningful to the recipient.
- (Optional) Share statewide by submitting to the VIPTA Cheers for Peers nomination form.
Cheers in Action: At Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, Infection Prevention has worked very closely with their equipment cleaning techs on hardwiring the process for cleaning and disinfecting of their neonatal intensive care unit isolettes. Infection Prevention awarded the team a Cheers for Peers certificate for all their hard work and collaboration with the IP team!
Looking for inspiration on what wins to celebrate? Take some of these ideas and tailor to your team’s accomplishments.
- Hand Hygiene Hero: Perfect hand hygiene on a spot audit.
- Infection-Free Milestone: A unit that stayed free of healthcare-associated infections for the month, six months, or a year.
- Oral Care All-Stars: A unit has >90% oral care compliance to lower healthcare-associated pneumonia risk.
- Environmental Services Excellence: Terminal clean passes (checklists or fluorescent-gel checks).
- “Wipe Before We Walk” Award (Facilities/Maintenance): Tools cleaned and disinfected after work in a patient room.
- Breathe-Easy Respiratory Infection Prevention Champions: Proper circuit handling and equipment disinfection across the board.
Try it and tell us how it went: Print a certificate, celebrate a win this month, and share your story. Submit a nomination to VIPTA and let us know what you tried, what worked, and how your team reacted. We cannot wait to cheer with you!
