Devin Jopp discusses home health's current lack of lack of infection prevention oversight.
Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part series. Read part one here.
HealthLeaders continues the conversation with Devin Jopp, CEO of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) about the need for infection control oversight in the home health setting.
As more individuals prefer to receive care in their home and older adults opt to age in place, home healthcare has seen substantial growth in the aftermath of the pandemic. Here is part two of HealthLeaders' interview with Jopp.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: How can we make infection prevention efforts a priority in healthcare overall?
Devin Jopp: We should be investing in our public health infrastructure. We should be building a pipeline for infection prevention and infection preventionist (IP) training and putting new infrastructure in place.
We should make sure we have surveillance systems in long-term care facilities, and IPs in long-term care facilities. All these pieces still aren't there, and I don't think there's the bandwidth politically to push some of these things, but we've got to dig deep and find the will to do the right thing and make these investments, because otherwise we're just going to be sitting ducks for the next infection, and it will come.
On the other hand, we're talking about pushing new models of care, like hospital at home or advancing home health. How are we going to do that when we can't even get the other components of what we're doing situated?
HL: How should healthcare professionals handle the gap in perspective when it comes to explaining these issues to legislators?
Jopp: The general politics of the acute-care and long-term-care lobby are very sophisticated. There's a lot of money in it, there's a lot of established players in it, so it's a lot harder for the home health organizations to get the same level of attention in the broader ecosystem.
There are education barriers around helping Congress understand that. We've got to educate legislators around that.
HL: It's been recommended that skilled nursing facilities have at least a full-time infection prevention officer on staff full-time. Would you recommend the same for home health agencies?
Jopp: APIC is coming up with a new staffing ratios calculator this year that's going to start by looking at different segments. Initially we will focus on acute, long-term care, and ambulatory, which looks at a whole bunch of resources and then determines what's the optimal number of infection preventionists you should have on staff.
We don't have one yet for home health, but we do have a white paper that will come out at the end of this year on infection prevention and control in home health, hospital, and hospice that will have some thoughts and ideas around what needs to happen in this space.
I think, if you are a home health agency, you absolutely need to have an infection preventionist on staff—at least one to help provide guidance. But after that, it depends how many homes you might have and how often people are doing rounding.
Jasmyne Ray is the revenue cycle editor at HealthLeaders.