Package Description

Representatives from The Joint Commission, CDC, and OSAP will use Joint Commission Survey findings from dental settings to discuss the risk that these findings pose to patients and your organization and then review the minimum expectations recommended for safe care in dental settings, and best practices to reduce risk.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this course, learners should be able to:

• Provide background about the roles of the Joint Commission, CDC, and OSAP
• Identify common breaches in infection prevention and control practices found in dental settings that place patients, staff, and your organization at risk
• Use scenarios to identify high risk issues, why these issues create a risk, and how to mitigate the risk

Price:

• Members & Non-Members: Free 

CE Information:

CE Credits: 1.25

Speakers:

Kathy Eklund, RDH, MHP

Ms. Eklund is the Director of Occupational Health and Safety, and the Forsyth Research Subject & Patient Safety Advocate at The Forsyth Institute. She is adjunct faculty at Regis College, Dental Hygiene Program, where she teaches a senior-level course, Evidence-Based Decision Making. She was the 2017-2019 Chair of the OSAP Board of Directors and a consultant to the ADA Council on Dental Practice. She serves as faculty for the New England AIDS Education and Training Centers and HIVdent.org. Over the past 35 years, Kathy has published papers and contributed to several texts on infection control and safety. She is an author of the 2003 CDC Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental Health-Care Settings and has lectured nationally and internationally on these topics.

Disclosures: No relevant financial relationships to disclose. 

Sylvia Garcia-Houchins, MBA, RN, CIC

Ms. Garcia-Houchins is the Director, Infection Prevention and Control in the Division of Health Care Improvement. In this role, she is responsible for oversight of infection prevention and control for The Joint Commission.

Ms. Garcia‐Houchins has over 30 years of experience in infection control in both hospital and long-term care settings, as well as eight years of clinical microbiology experience. Most recently, she served as the Director, Infection Control at the University of Chicago Medicine and was also an intermittent consultant for Joint Commission Resources for 10 years. Ms. Garcia-Houchins has provided infection prevention and control consultation, assessment, and education in a variety of health care settings including hospitals, health clinics, ambulatory surgery, and dialysis centers both domestically and internationally. Her specialty areas of interest include disinfection and sterilization, dialysis, infection prevention during renovation and construction, and control of Legionella. One of the highlights of her career has been training health care professionals in Saudi Arabia as Infection Preventionists. She served as a test writer and reviewer for the Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology and has also authored numerous articles and book chapters related to infection control including a chapter in the APIC Text and the Cleaning, Disinfection and Sterilization Chapter in The APIC/JCR Infection Prevention and Control Workbook, Third Edition.

Ms. Garcia‐Houchins earned a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a master’s of business administration from the Keller Graduate School of Management, and her nursing degree from Truman College.

Disclosures: No relevant financial relationships to disclose. 

Michele Neuburger, DDS, MPH

Dr. Neuburger is a dental officer in CDC’s Division of Oral Health. Dr. Neuburger joined the division in February 2015, where she focuses on issues related to infection prevention and control and dental public health. She holds a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and a Master of Public Health degree from the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University located in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition, she completed a dental public health residency and a research fellowship at CDC and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Dental Public Health.

Disclosures: No relevant financial relationships to disclose.