Advancing the competency of infection preventionists

The Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) has identified advancing infection prevention competency as a core goal in their Strategic Plan 2020. To achieve this goal, APIC has published a self-assessment tool to help infection preventionists identify where they are on a predefined scale. This project trialed APIC's self-assessment tool along with an internally developed objective assessment. The objective was to determine if the tools help identify areas for improvement to advance overall group competency at BJC HealthCare, a large Midwestern health care system with nearly 30 infection preventionists.