We are looking for an Infection Preventionists to add to the Kootenai Health team in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. At this 397 bed facility, you will work with three other IP professionals under the Manager of Infection Prevention.
You will need to have a Bachelor’s degree in public health, epidemiology, clinical laboratory science, medical technology or a related field, and a Master’s degree is preferred. You will be required to have received your Certification of Infection Control within 2 years of hire, and ideally you will have some Infection Prevention or clinical experience.
The main Kootenai Health hospital and campus is located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and includes a community-owned hospital with more than 200 employed providers across 25+ clinical specialties from family medicine, cardiology, orthopedics, surgery and more. Kootenai Health repeatedly earns national recognition for safety and is a Magnet nursing facility.
Measure | The Hospital’s Score | Worst Performing Hospital | Avg. Performing Hospital | Best Performing Hospital | Data Source | Time Period Covered |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dangerous object left in patient’s body What’s This? | 0.000 | 0.359 | 0.02 | 0.000 | CMS | 07/01/2017 – 06/30/2019 |
Air or gas bubble in the blood What’s This? | 0.000 | 0.036 | .0004 | 0.000 | CMS | 07/01/2017 – 06/30/2019 |
Patient falls and injuries What’s This? | 0.566 | 1.778 | 0.42 | 0.000 | CMS | 07/01/2017 – 06/30/2019 |
Infection in the blood What’s This? | 0.432 | 3.420 | 0.81 | 0.000 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 04/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 and 07/01/2020 – 9/30/2020 |
Infection in the urinary tract What’s This? | 0.357 | 2.644 | 0.75 | 0.000 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 04/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 and 07/01/2020 – 9/30/2020 |
Surgical site infection after colon surgery What’s This? | 1.049 | 2.887 | 0.80 | 0.000 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 04/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 and 07/01/2020 – 9/30/2020 |
MRSA Infection What’s This? | 0.000 | 3.055 | 0.84 | 0.000 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 04/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 and 07/01/2020 – 9/30/2020 |
C. diff. Infection What’s This? | 0.562 | 1.949 | 0.54 | 0.000 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 04/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 and 07/01/2020 – 9/30/2020 |
Death from treatable serious complications What’s This? | 144.63 | 206.08 | 159.67 | 95.65 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Harmful Events What’s This? | 1.22 | 3.35 | 1.00 | 0.60 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Dangerous bed sores What’s This? * | 1.33 | 8.80 | 0.58 | 0.04 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Collapsed lung What’s This? * | 0.18 | 0.48 | 0.23 | 0.12 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Falls causing broken hips What’s This? * | 0.09 | 0.16 | 0.09 | 0.07 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Blood Leakage What’s This? * | 2.12 | 5.58 | 2.54 | 1.26 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Kidney injury after surgery What’s This? * | 1.77 | 3.45 | 1.42 | 0.58 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Serious breathing problem What’s This? * | 3.90 | 17.09 | 5.18 | 1.66 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Dangerous blood clot What’s This? * | 2.76 | 8.41 | 3.61 | 1.65 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Sepsis infection after surgery What’s This? * | 6.25 | 9.73 | 4.96 | 2.31 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Surgical wound splits open What’s This? * | 1.10 | 1.54 | 0.86 | 0.57 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
Accidental cuts and tears What’s This? * | 1.74 | 3.97 | 1.21 | 0.37 | CMS | 07/01/2018 – 12/31/2019 |
* This measure is a part of the Harmful Events Composite and is not used for scoring. |
Process measures include the management structures and procedures a hospital has in place to protect patients from errors, accidents, and injuries.
Measure | The Hospital’s Score | Worst Performing Hospital | Avg. Performing Hospital | Best Performing Hospital | Data Source | Time Period Covered |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Doctors order medications through a computer What’s This? | 100 | 5 | 85.77 | 100 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Safe medication administration What’s This? | 75 | 5 | 83.25 | 100 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Specially trained doctors care for ICU patients What’s This? | 100 | 5 | 62.82 | 100 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Effective leadership to prevent errors What’s This? | 120.00 | 46.15 | 116.85 | 120.00 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Staff work together to prevent errors What’s This? | 120.00 | 0.00 | 116.49 | 120.00 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Enough qualified nurses What’s This? | 100.00 | 17.65 | 98.16 | 100.00 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Handwashing What’s This? | Not Available | 15 | 74.36 | 100 | 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Survey | 2021 |
Communication with nurses What’s This? | 92 | 73 | 91.10 | 98 | CMS | 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 |
Communication with doctors What’s This? | 93 | 80 | 91.00 | 98 | CMS | 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 |
Responsiveness of hospital staff What’s This? | 83 | 60 | 84.38 | 94 | CMS | 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 |
Communication about medicines What’s This? | 81 | 53 | 77.66 | 92 | CMS | 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 |
Communication about discharge What’s This? | 91 | 67 | 86.51 | 96 | CMS | 01/01/2019 – 12/31/2019 |
Position Summary:
Responsible for identifying, investigating, monitoring, and reporting healthcare-associated infections. Collaborates with teams and individuals to create infection prevention strategies, provide feedback, and sustain infection prevention (IP) strategies. Collaborates with all other departments to provide consultation and content expertise to protect patients, providers, employees, visitors, and others from risk of infection or infectious disease transmission throughout Kootenai Health.
Responsibilities:
Develops, implements, and evaluates the organizational infection prevention program
Develops annual surveillance plan based on the population(s) served, services provided, and analysis of surveillance data
Utilizes epidemiologic principles to conduct surveillance and investigations
Evaluates and modifies the surveillance plan as necessary
Develops, interprets, and assists with implementation of infection prevention and control policies and protocols
Communicates infection prevention and control information and data to various committees and healthcare workers across the organization as assigned
Serves as a resource to all Kootenai employees and providers regarding infection prevention standards and best practices
Connects with organizations to promote health and safety across the region
Collaborates with leadership to assure employee awareness and practice in accordance with infection prevention standards, policies, and procedures
Actively seeks opportunities to improve patient and employee safety
Assesses and addresses learning needs of those served through IP education programs
Create IP educational goals, objectives, and strategies using learning principles and available educational tools and technology
Evaluates the effectiveness of IP educational programs and learner outcomes
Complies with infection prevention related regulatory/mandatory reporting requirements at local, state, and federal levels
Facilitates compliance with IP regulatory and accreditation standards, assuring both accuracy and timeliness of data submission
Stays abreast on infection prevention and control regulatory and accreditation standards
Utilizes performance improvement (PI) methodology as a means of enacting change
Defines the scope of the project and select appropriate PI tools to aid in efficiency, reliability, effectiveness and ensure sustainability of the initiative
Ensures that customer needs and expectations are considered in the development of and continuous improvement of processes, products, and services
Monitors and analyzes process and outcome measures to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability
Participates in PI committees, teams and initiatives
Participates in the development and review of occupational health policies and procedures related to IPC
Collaborates with Employee Health to assess risk of occupational exposures to infectious disease
Collaborates with Employee Health to develop rates and trends of occupational exposures and immunization and screening programs
Collaborates with Employee Health to apply work restrictions and recommendations related to communicable diseases or following an exposure
Consults and collaborates with local, state, and federal public health officials, and community health organizations
Evaluates research and evidence-based practices and incorporates appropriate findings into routine practice
Integrates evidence-based practices into policies, guidelines, protocols and educational strategies
Identifies barriers for implementation and develops strategies to minimize or remove barriers
Implements strategies to sustain efforts such as audit tools and meaningful feedback
Considers the financial and safety implications and clinical outcomes when making recommendations, evaluating technology and products, and developing policies and procedures
Requirements and Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in public health, epidemiology, clinical laboratory science, medical technology or related field required;Master’s degree preferred
Infection Control and Epidemiology (i.e.: CIC©) certification within 2 years of employment required
Prior infection prevention and control experience preferred
Prior clinical experience preferred
Working Conditions:
Must be able to bend, stoop and crouch
Bust be able to lift and move up to 10lbs
Typical equipment used in an office setting
About Kootenai Health
Kootenai Health is a highly esteemed health care organization, serving patients throughout northern Idaho and the Inland Northwest. We pride ourselves on our outstanding reputation as both an employer and a health care provider. We have been recognized with many accolades and distinctions including being recognized as a Gallup Great Workplace, No. 1 Best Place to Work in Large Healthcare Organizations, and Magnet™ Status for Nursing Excellence.
As your next employer, we are excited to offer you:
100% employer-paid health insurance premiums for full-time employees. Part-time employees pay only a small portion a month for medical, dental, and vision coverage. Benefits start 1st of the month following 30 days of employment
A tuition assistance program available after 90 days. If you want to further your education, we’ll help you pay for it
Kootenai Health will match your contributions in a defined contribution 457 retirement plan based on years of service ranging from 3-6 percent. Kootenai Health will contribute an amount equal to two percent of your gross earnings
Competitive salaries with night, weekend and PRN shift differentials
An award-winning and incentive-driven wellness program. Including a MyHealth corporate team, onsite financial seminars and coaching
Employees receive discounts at The Wellness Bar, PEAK Fitness, various cell phone carriers, and more
Robust and interactive employee bonus program, utilize our mobile ERIN app to alert employees to new positions, make referrals and track your bonuses
Yes. All of our open positions come with some sort of relocation allowance to help with the expenses of relocating.
Yes. We will prep you for every interview you take. We know what our clients are looking for, so we will let you know what to expect and what experiences and accomplishments you should be sure to communicate to them in an interview.
Yes. If you connect us with another Infection Prevention professional that is interested in this position, and ultimately gets hired – we will send you a $500 referral bonus.
Of course. We work to get you the highest possibly financial package – and communicate our progress throughout the process. We are financially incentivized to get you the most lucrative offer possible.
Absolutely. We will review your resume before we submit it to the client to make sure it communicates everything it needs to.
First, everything we offer to our candidates is completely FREE.
We operate as advisors and consultants for your Infection Prevention career. We’ve recruited in this industry for a long time and understand the profession as well as anyone.
If you decide you’d like us to represent you and apply for a position, the first thing our team will do is examine your resumé closely. We will fix up your resumé to ensure it communicates exactly what our client is looking for – demonstrating not only what you’ve been responsible for in previous Infection Prevention positions, but also how effective you’ve been in those roles.
We have direct access to the hiring managers in the positions we search on which allows us to present your resumé directly to them, knowing exactly what they want to see in a candidate. We will keep you in the loop when this happens and what their initial feedback is. No more waiting in the dark hoping to hear back from HR.
Because of our relationships with the hiring manager, we have the ability to make a case for them to speak with you. It also allows us to get quick, honest feedback following each interview you have. And we will provide that feedback to you, good or bad.
In addition to preparing your resumé and presenting directly to the hiring manager, we also will prep you for each and every interview. Again, we know what our clients are looking for, so we will let you know what to expect and what experiences and accomplishments you should be sure to communicate to them in an interview.
In terms of the interview process, we’ll work with you and the client to get those scheduled during a time that makes sense for you.
Perhaps the most beneficial piece of being represented by Clutch Recruitment is that we’ll negotiate an offer for you – securing the highest possible offer the client can make. Don’t worry about your salary demands rubbing your future employer the wrong way; we do all of that for you, ensuring a completely fair offer, without the awkwardness that potentially comes with it. We are financially incentivized to get you the highest possible offer, and we will ensure that happens.
Once you accept an offer, our work doesn’t stop. We’ll be there to talk you through your resignation and prepare you for how to handle a counter offer, along with all other complications that may arise.
We have a large in house sourcing team that collects information from various databases online including LinkedIn, certification boards, and professional associations.