The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The Joint Commission are releasing new infection control resources for podiatry and orthopedic and pain management settings. As health care delivery transitions from acute inpatient settings to outpatient settings, there is a growing need to address outbreak and patient notification events related to lapses in infection control in outpatient settings. 

Free online resources are part of ADOPT (Adaptation and Dissemination of Outpatient Infection Prevention) Guidance, a three-year initiative that began in 2015 to adapt, enhance and disseminate CDC guidance related to infection prevention and control (IPC) in outpatient settings. ADOPT Guidance aims to drive practice improvements and protect patients and staff across diverse outpatient settings and services. 

Resources include two guides: “Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Podiatry Settings” (available now) and “Guide to Infection Prevention in Orthopedic and Pain Management Office Settings” (coming soon).  These guides are also available as pocket guides. In addition, another resource is now available that includes a PDF fillable checklist for other outpatient settings. This checklist is adapted from the CDC’s “Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Settings: Minimum Expectations for Safe Care.”

The guides feature key recommendations such as IPC program and infrastructure information. They also cover several topics including education and training, safe injection practices, medical device reprocessing, environmental cleaning and more. 

“Providing care in an environment that minimizes or eliminates risks of healthcare-associated infections is critical,” says David W. Baker, MD, MPH, FACP, executive vice president, Division of Health Care Quality Evaluation, The Joint Commission. “We encourage ambulatory health care organizations to use the recommendations and activities in the guides for IPC training and education, as well as to heighten awareness of the need for IPC in the outpatient setting.” 

“The evidence-based recommendations in these guides have been built upon existing CDC guidance and tailored to address the unique challenges in podiatric, orthopedic, and pain management outpatient settings,” says Ryan Fagan, MD, MPH&TM, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “These tools provide a foundation for infection prevention and control that can be used to develop facility-specific plans or ensure that existing plans include the core elements needed to provide safe care.”

The guides were developed with input from several project partners, including 12 professional associations and 11 health care systems. In addition, in-depth interviews and onsite visits were conducted with podiatry, orthopedic and pain management outpatient facilities to gather setting specific scenarios, challenges and examples for inclusion in the guides. 

To access the ADOPT Guidance resources, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/tools/index.html.