About 4 months ago, the housekeeping supervisor in one of our hospitals left. My director asked if I could take over in the interim, “just hold the place together for a few hours a week” until a replacement is found. Now, I had thought perhaps someday I’d be interested in an operations-focused role in healthcare. And I do have a fondness for environmental services as it relates to IC. How often does the ICP get a chance to totally control the environmental cleanliness of the facility?! What an opportunity! And here, opportunity knocked. Then it punched me in the throat when I answered the door.
This is not a “few hours” job. This is suddenly managing a full staff. Well, not exactly: It’s managing a staff that’s missing 2 FTEs currently. It’s interviewing, hiring, and training those people when nobody really trained me. It’s scheduling and inventory and a laundry department. And it’s 4 months later. 4 months of learning-while-doing, of covering shifts when we have sick calls (yes, cleaning rooms), of trying to design and implement better training and operations systems. 4 months of trying to still do infection control full-time. Some days, I definitely feel like I’m not doing very well at either job. And I’m also still covering my other job--a very part-time gig doing IC at another place. But I know the effort I put in now will leave that department better for the next supervisor, and honestly, for the patients as well. This is my chance to get everything right.
I know I’m not alone. What you do as an ICP depends quite a bit on where you do it. IC and Employee Health overlap heavily, and in many places, it’s one department (or one person). In nursing care centers, IC is often a combined role with staff education or nursing administration. I’ve seen ads for an ICP/Wound Care nurse, an interesting skill set. And colleagues who work in critical access hospitals tell me they wear even more hats.
Then there’s the other side: large facilities with many IC employees. APIC just had a great article on how one facility divides the labor. Then there’s this one on different levels of ICP roles, with organizational charts, and what job duties fall under each role. In a big facility, you may not see everything. You might be responsible for only one unit, or only one type of surveillance, or one type of infection, or one ICP domain like education or data management. How would you feel about just covering LDRP? Would your Employee Health skills fade? Would you welcome the chance to be an integral part of one department?
My interests have changed over the years, and in my next job search I may be seeking something a little different than what I have now. So if you are new to this job, think about what type of work environment you are looking for. There’s certainly something for everyone out there.
