New to infection control nursing

[harley91013]

I just recently took a position at a behavioral health clinic (we do inpatient and outpatient) for infection control. Unfortunately there is no current infection control nurse there to train me so the DON and nurse supervisor will help me but that makes me nervous because neither have done infection control completely. If anyone can help me understand more of what i need to do to make sure we are up to standard with jcaho that would be great. I havent started training yet, will start in a few days. I was told we will start with making sure employees are up to date with TB and flu shots, that im okay with im more concerned with being up to standard with jcaho like paper work, monitoring ect. We havent had an actual infection control nurse in almost a year now. Any help will be greatly appreciated

[juliepeters.ipnurse]

I would recommend signing up for EPI 101 and EPI 102 through our professional association (APIC). I would next have someone pull out your JC accreditation regulations for your specific type of facility..in your case behavioral health. Within those guidelines is a section for Infection Control. There you will find the information you need and also what the surveyor will utilize when performing their survey. You can also GOOGLE: Infection Control and Behavioral Health. Also, CMS is where the core of the guidelines come from and you can find that under, CMS conditions of participation. GOOGLE: CMS SOM. SOM stands for state operations manual. Best of luck!

[techiebryson]

I'm in a similar situation.

Look at your state licensure requirements, your joint Commisson standards, the CDC influenza immunization and TB control plans, and in my job I am in charge of the BBP training too (for OSHA).