Infection Prevention & Control for COVID-19 and Other Diseases

Controlling the spread of infectious diseases within your practice is a crucial component for patient and staff safety. Early recognition is essential to controlling the spread and keeping your business hygienic. Because poor clinical outcomes and increased health care expenditures can be directly linked to infection spread, establishing a strong infection prevention and control (IPC) strategy will aid in reducing health service disruptions and respiratory illness transmission to patients and staff.

What are the CDC's Guidelines to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19?

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the following procedures within a healthcare setting to prevent the spread¹:

• Establish a process to identify and manage individuals with suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection
• Optimize the use of engineering controls and indoor air quality
• Implement universal use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
• Encourage physical distancing where possible
• Perform SARS-CoV-2 testing, regardless of vaccination status

Respiratory illnesses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza may spread rapidly in certain settings, particularly to those who are immune compromised. Health care workers may be especially vulnerable given their high-contact level with patients. Regular disinfection and sterilization efforts are especially important tools for infection prevention.

Henry Schein Medical is proud to partner with you and your business to help resume and maintain standard patient volume and elective surgeries. In a response to COVID-19 and associated variants, and as your General Practice or Ambulatory Surgery Center continues procedural and surgical care, consider these infection prevention innovations:

Infection Prevention: Ecolab® OR Program

Using advanced chemistry and technology to create cleaner and safer environments, the Ecolab® OR Program is a complete offering that helps you monitor and standardize processes to drive measurable improvements in clinical, operational, and financial metrics. This program helps drive and sustain OR turnover efficiency while also improving; cleaning thoroughness, Joint Commission audit-readiness, and margin protection for your ASC.

Benefits include:

• Faster OR turnover time
• Improved cleaning results
• Process standardization and consistency
• Reduced risk and financial impact of HAIs
• Enhanced operational efficiencies
• Ensured AORN compliance

Contact your Henry Schein Medical representative for additional information and pricing.

Additional Resources for COVID-19 Prevention and Control:

• Click here to learn more about the risk of antibiotic resistance ways to combat it with antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP).
• Instrument Reprocessing by InControl is intended to help you preserve the safety and well-being of your patients and staff while maintaining quality, care and profitability. For more information, please click here.
• Ensuring your autoclave is effectively sterilized is an essential infection prevention strategy. For more information on autoclave sterilization best practice, please click here.

Clean hands help to prevent illness and protect from spreading germs to others. In fact, hand hygiene is one of the most essential first steps to ensuring respiratory infections are kept at bay. Effective handwashing (utilizing clean, running water) and employing hand sanitizer efforts as needed, has been proven to reduce respiratory infections as much as 20% while preventing diarrhea-related sicknesses as much as 30%.¹

To learn more about effective hand hygiene practices, please click here.