1110 - Success: Effecting Sustainable Change

Session Description: Effective infection prevention and control strategies must continue to evolve to address ongoing challenges to sustain healthcare associated infection reduction and regulatory change. A robust change management framework and the skills to effectively make change happen is crucial. This session will identify key organizational essentials for a multidisciplinary team to facilitate sustainable process change. These elements include taking time to plan for success (go slow to go fast) and ensure organizational priority alignment, establishing a shared need and vision for change, implementation planning and the availability of needed resources prior to change implementation. The skills and knowledge infection preventionists need to be effective change agents will also be discussed.

Approximately sixty-two percent of quality change efforts fail because organizations do not afford sufficient time to address the questions and concerns of people involved in making the change happen. The session will also focus on how to mobilize the commitment of leaders and frontline staff including the identification of barriers to change and steps to address acceptance and accountability. Group exercises and role playing will be employed during the session to engage participants and demonstrate change facilitation tools. This session is applicable for all career stages of the infection preventionist.