Accreditation Canada’s Standards for Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) build on previous Accreditation Canada infection prevention and control standards. They are based on updated research and best practice in the field, as well as standards from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association-Canada (CHICA-Canada), Accreditation Canada extends its appreciation to to these organizations for their support and contributions. These IPAC standards include structure, process, and outcome performance measures to promote assessment of organizational compliance against standards of excellence, Required Organizational Practices (ROPs), and indicators. They are flexible enough to apply to large and complex health systems as well as to small organizations such as those outside acute care including home care and long term care, and they include the client perspective. Front-line staff and service providers who often carry primary responsibility for preventing and controlling infections may find these standards particularly valuable.
The standards are divided into four subsections:
Investing in infection prevention and control
Keeping people safe from infections
Providing a safe and suitable environment
Being prepared for outbreaks and pandemics
To complement these standards, a more detailed supplement addressing processes for sterilizatiion of equipment and medical devices, based on CSA’s standards, is available to organizations with sterilization or reprocessing units. The supplement provides organizations with an opportunity to conduct a highly-specific, indepth evaluation of sterilization processes and outcomes.