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Sept. 17-20, 2017 • Rosen Shingle Creek • Orlando, FL

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!

Kassandra Kania, CleanLink
As cold and flu season approaches, some cleaning departments may need to ramp up their cleaning efforts — and take their cue from healthcare facilities that already have stringent programs in place to prevent the spread of germs.

CleanLink
When people are admitted to a hospital the first thing they ask is, "When can I go home?"

Matt Poe, American Laundry News
Start with basics, evaluate each job, experts say.

Mark Farnsworth, Special to Healthcare Facilities Today
Dust consists of both live, dormant and decaying types of visible and microscopic particles.

Einav Keet, Contagion Live
To better prepare the nation for its next potential flu pandemic, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released an updated pandemic influenza plan based on lessons learned from the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic.

Jamie Morgan, Health Facilities Management
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services updated its requirement that says CMS-participating facilities must develop and adhere to policies designed to reduce Legionella risk.

Liv Osby, Greenville News
More prudent use of antibiotics combined with infection control techniques like hand-washing greatly reduces the incidence of dangerous hospital infections and antimicrobial resistance, new research shows.

Anuja Vaidya, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality
There is a strong association between antibiotic stewardship programs and lowered rates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and Clostridium difficile infections among hospital inpatients, a study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, shows.

Jeff Ferenc, Health Facilities Management
An initiative led by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) reduced methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections by 89 percent over four years in a veterans' community living center (CLC) in North Carolina.

Irene Froehlich, Forbes
The type of leadership that works in the long run is resonant leadership.

Leah Fessler, Quartz
Getting feedback from your coworkers is scary.

By Tom Mattice, CHESP

By Hank Carbone and Angela Becker

Make yourself indispensable and advance your career! Plan your education for 2017. Visit AHE’s 2017 ENGAGE site to learn more about educational courses, podcasts, webinars, and events. And make sure to check out AHE's EXPRESS Learning Courses. EXPRESS is a mobile learning platform that offers educational podcasts delivered by environmental services and infection prevention thought leaders. You asked for learning opportunities that require less of a time commitment and we delivered!

CMIP, the Certificate of Mastery in Infection Prevention for Environmental Services Professionals, is a robust certificate program that provides the requisite knowledge for a "trained" professional in infection prevention and control specific to the clinical environment of care.