Collaboration is Key for Interdepartmental Relationships

What should a relationship between infection prevention and value analysis be like?

I like to use the analogy of a duck swimming across a lake, and its legs are moving really fast, but it looks very calm and collected. That’s kind of the way it is in healthcare: we can make it very simple by understanding what everyone is bringing to the table, what their interests are, and how they can influence the decision-making process across an organization. When you bring all the right people together at the right time to the right place, then we can make value-based decisions that really improve not only patient care, but staff workflow and also the utilization of equipment and supplies. 

What’s a major challenge between these departments?

What people may not understand is value analysis [departments] do want to pull all the key people together, but sometimes they look at it like, “Well, wait a minute, they're taking some of our work away.”

Value analysis is tasked by infection control committees, and they know all the regulations and standards that they need to. If we get together and understand each other’s worlds, we can move ahead more effectively because every decision in value analysis involves infection prevention and control in some way.

There are various checklist items that we have in value analysis, one of which is instructions for use (IFU)—every product that is reusable has one of those. It is not just about how the piece of equipment for the product is reusable, it is how one sets it up, what is to be done with it, how does it function, etc. Also, the IFU instructs one on how to clean, maintain, and disinfect it. If it is a sterilization product, the IFU also tells one how to sterilize it and for how long to do these things and when to do them and how to do them. So, you need to sit down with a variety of individuals from different departments like IP and EVS, and value analysis is an integrator that brings those folks together to say, “OK, we’re about to make a decision and it's between these two or three products or pieces of equipment that have a reusable or IFU that we need to discuss.” 

It is really important for everyone to get together and understand and come to an agreement on a piece of equipment, asking questions like can we adopt this product with these sets of conditions? Do we have the foundational aspects in place? Will this product be really helpful to patient care? We can sustain this by following the IFUs and understanding that infection control is part of the whole continuum of making these decisions. Infection prevention has to be included and invited to meetings and make themselves available for not only decision making and hearing all the various data but also for implementation and follow-up. For example, if a change is made and then all of a sudden there is an increase in X, what changed over the, for instance, last six months. 

If infection prevention is part of the whole process, it can shorten time to decision making and also make it more effective. Then we can monitor what is going on with said product and determine, for example, when education might need to take place again or bring in the supplier to do some work. Overall, it is most successful when it is a big collaboration.

Can you share a few thoughts on how infection prevention departments save hospitals money in the long run?

In value analysis, we follow processes that have been developed over many years. We really look toward how we can get to high value, meaning our outcomes are improved and no other harm is coming to patients or staff or the environment in which we practice. Then, any of the workflows and the dollars that we spent on the poorer outcomes get changed over. 

You want to make sure that whole continuum is more effective at care getting done, and [patients are being] effectively treated or [having conditions] prevented sooner. The dollars that are being spent on that come back four or five-fold and your metrics toward quality are improving and you have something that you can then throw up against the wall and see what sticks.

Are there any new technologies to note that can assist with bettering relationships between value analysis and infection prevention?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be one of the most helpful tools. We’ve learned so much about AI, especially through applications like ChatGPT, and its ability to create charts and graphs and make predictions is invaluable. It is all about the questions you’re asking; an infection prevention department could leverage their own software that gives them information about how they’re tracking patients. 

There is so much data today that you need an aggregator to at least help you directionally. AI is not meant to replace any of the intelligence and experience that a human has it is just there to assist and lead humans in the right direction. 

If an individual is trying to do a lot of work in infection prevention and relying on maybe a homemade or not off the market application, I would suggest subscribing to something specifically for infection prevention and control. It is very hard for IP to get budgeted money and show that return on investment.

Any final words of wisdom?

It is important to know and understand what the regulatory bodies and regulations are and educate each other in your organization. You don’t want to prepare for inspections when they come, you want to always be inspection ready. When I was managing laboratories, we operated every single day as if we were going to be inspected. It did not matter if they were coming that day or in three years, we operated the same way. So, understanding regulations is key to success.