Government
Affairs
Practicing infection control in health care settings often involves
adhering to federal and local regulations and guidelines.
Legislative and regulatory advocacy regarding the development of
these regulations and guidelines has always been an important aspect
of APIC's operations. This area will provide important information
on APIC's governmental affairs activities and governmental activity
important to infection control professionals.
2. Universal precautions
rule: Currently under review at ISDH. Watch the
Indiana Register for publication of the draft.
3. Resistant organism guideline:
Complete and published on the ISDH web site. You
can access the document from the link located on our Home
page.
4. OSHA TB regulation: Though
the TB regulation was dropped at the end of 2003, OSHA
indicated their intention to survey for implementation
of the full respiratory protection standard when they
survey health care facilities. This would require annual
re-fit testing for all N95 masks. APIC has continued
to work to get this requirement appealed on the grounds
that this action will consume significant healthcare resources
and is not based on evidence that it will have any impact
on transmission rates of TB. APIC issued an Action
Alert on September 10 (include link-I emailed it to you) which
outlined the status of a House amendment to delay or abandon
this requirement for annual fit testing. The National
office will continue to be involved in this process and
will notify the membership if they need us to contact our legislators
regarding this important issue. <Read the Letter>
requires Adobe Acrobat
5. Bioterrorism preparedness:
State Level: Small pox working group-Laurie
Fish representative, Hospital Group-Vickie Vandeventer representative
Syndromic Surveillance-Linda Jones at ISDH
coordinating the development of Syndromic surveillance system.
