Jamie Morgan, Health Facilities Management
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed at the American Society for Healthcare Engineering’s (ASHE) annual conference that it is working on emergency management requirements for hospitals.

Matt Poe, American Laundry News
Sourcing and screening key to finding right candidate, expert says.

Meg Bryant, Healthcare Dive
Customer service, long an afterthought in the healthcare industry, is now very much on the front lines of hospitals’ strategic planning.

Julie Henry, Healthcare Dive
As the U.S. healthcare system continues to evolve, hospitals and other healthcare organizations are grappling with how to do more work with fewer resources; that includes human resources.

Infection Control Today
Three key factors increase the risk for patient-to-patient transmission of an extremely drug-resistant bacteria known as CP-CRE, according to a new study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology. The research helps explain why some contacts of an infected patient acquire the dangerous bacteria while others do not.

Heather Punke, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality
On Monday, the CDC issued updated interim guidance for clinicians caring for pregnant women who were possibly exposed to Zika. The agency also updated interim guidance to prevent the sexual transmission of the virus.

Infection Control Today
Biggerstaff, et al. (2016) say that early insights into the timing of the start, peak, and intensity of the influenza season could be useful in planning influenza prevention and control activities.

WDBJ7
Infection and the spread of disease are risks in a hospital- BUT now a robot is helping at Martinsville Henry County Memorial.

Maureen Metcalf, Forbes
Most leaders regularly update their mobile devices. They update their laptops, and many update their professional photos. But as a leader, are you updating your leadership skills and behaviors?

Quint Studer, Pensacola News Journal
This week I received a note from someone who just was selected to a leadership position and wanted to create a great culture at his new stop.

Make yourself indispensable and advance your career! Plan your education for 2016. Visit AHE’s brand-new 2016 ENGAGE site to learn more about educational courses, podcasts, webinars, and events.

The designation of AHE Fellow (FAHE) recognizes current AHE members for reaching the highest level of education and achievement in both the Association and in the environmental services field. Only presented to Certified Healthcare Environmental Services Professionals (CHESP), FAHE status is given to active members who have excelled in specific areas and have submitted an acceptable, original, unpublished paper on a current aspect of environmental services.

We need YOU! AHE is gathering input from environmental services departments across the country to identify baseline staffing productivity standards. The results of this data gathering will be used in building staffing models and providing metrics for environmental services directors. You can be a key player in identifying and establishing these important staffing criteria for our industry.

EXCHANGE 2016 will be held on September 25-28, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, PA. This year, EXCHANGE attendees can look forward to:
• Certified Healthcare Environmental Services Technician (CHEST) Pre-Conference Workshop
• Certificate of Mastery in Infection Prevention for Environmental Services (CMIP) Pre-Conference Workshop
• Infection Prevention, Environmental Cleaning, Leadership, Sustainability, Outbreaks and other sessions
• Extended Sessions
• Healthcare Marketplace

Celebrate your team during Environmental Services Week, September 11-17, 2016.

AHE has started this initiative to encourage professionals in the field to begin, or continue to refer to the departments and the personnel caring for the healthcare environment as environmental services professionals rather than as housekeepers, janitors and custodians. The staff and management teams responsible for maintaining the clinical environment of care require different skills and competencies from those needed in the commercial cleaning and general maintenance industry and it's time we address this critical distinction.

Please help us redefine healthcare environmental services!

The Association for the Healthcare Environment’s diverse membership includes environmental services professionals from many different backgrounds, including international members. Here, we feature three perspectives on the global scope of environmental services and what AHE has to offer for members in any country.

The Value of Training; an interview with Patrick Covington, T-CHEST