ACFAS Helps Release New Outpatient Infection Control Guidelines

CHICAGO (September 28, 2018)-With the growing trend of healthcare delivery transitioning from acute inpatient settings to outpatient settings, the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons (ACFAS) partnered with The Joint Commission, the Centers for Diseases Control and other healthcare specialty organizations on a three-year initiative, Adaptation and Dissemination for Outpatient Infection Prevention (ADOPT) Guidance, to help ensure patients are provided care in environments that minimizes or eliminates the risk of healthcare-associated infections.

As part of the ADOPT Guidance initiative, new valuable infection control resources specific to podiatric, orthopaedic and pain management settings have been developed for physicians to drive infection control practice improvements and protect patients and staff. The free resources include two guides, "Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Podiatry Setting (available now) and "Guide to Infection Prevention in Orthopaedic and Pain Management Office Settings" (coming soon).

The guides were not only developed with input from the healthcare project partners, but also with the help of in-depth interviews and onsite visits with podiatric, orthopaedic and pain management outpatient facilities to gather setting-specific scenarios, challenges and examples for inclusion in the guides.

"Providing our patients with the highest level of safety and expert care is critical and at the forefront of what we do as foot and ankle surgeons," said John S. Steinberg, DPM, FACFAS, president of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons. "And, ACFAS is proud to have partnered with the CDC, Joint Commission and other key healthcare organizations as the podiatric surgery experts to help set the standards for infection control in ambulatory specialty settings for the betterment of our patients."

ACFAS encourages all those foot and ankle surgeons practicing in outpatient settings to download the new guidelines and implement them into their practices. The podiatric-specific guide, "Guide to Infection Prevention for Outpatient Podiatry Settings," and a pocket guide version of the guidelines are available online at acfas.org/ADOPT. 

For more information on the ADOPT Guidance initiative, visit cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/tools/index.html.  

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