Enroll in ICAR

Eligibility

All Minnesota acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, outpatient clinics, and ambulance services are eligible to enroll.

Requirements

Completion of an ICAR assessment and site visit, along with an agreement to take measures to improve infection prevention and control capacity.

Process

Select the assessment tool that is specific to your setting.

Please note that once you start an online assessment, the system assigns you a unique access code. If you need to exit and return to the assessment, you will need to log in with your unique access code. For more flexibility, you may want to print the PDF assessment tool, fill it out by hand at your convenience, and then enter your data into the online tool.

Please contact the MDH-ICAR staff at health.icar@state.mn.us with questions or concerns.

1. Assessment

Complete an assessment tool:

• ICAR Assessment Tool for General IPC Across Settings
  Secure online assessment tool for acute care, long-term care, and outpatient care.
  • ICAR Assessment Tool for General Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Across Settings (PDF)
    Printable version of general IPC assessment tool.
• ICAR Assessment Tool for Ambulance Services
  Secure online assessment tool.
  • Infection Control Assessment and Response (ICAR) Tool for Ambulance Services (PDF)
    Printable version of assessment tool, including guidelines and other resources.

2. Site visit

• An ICAR team member will contact you by phone or email to schedule a site visit.
• Determine what staff (e.g., leadership, nursing, environmental services, etc.) you would like present at the site visit.
• Identify a meeting room at your facility to hold the site visit.
• Participate in a site visit. The site visit is non-regulatory with the intent to establish a relationship for continued partnership. During the visit ICAR staff will help to identify facility priorities and challenges to tailor references for each facility.
• Together with ICAR staff, select a priority on which to focus your efforts.

3. Results and priorities

• An ICAR team member summarizes the assessment results and conversation in a report that includes resources to address identified focus areas.
• Implement ICAR suggestions, tools, and identified resources as you are able and at your own pace.
• Complete a short survey sent by the ICAR team to collect progress six months after the site visit.
• Enjoy the support and partnership!

Definitions

The following definitions have been developed to assist with the implementation of elements of the CDC ICAR assessment tools related to infection prevention competency, training, auditing and feedback.

• Healthcare Personnel Infection Prevention (IP) Competency: The proven ability to apply essential knowledge, skills, and abilities to prevent the transmission of pathogens during the provision of care.
• Healthcare Personnel IP Competency-Based Training: The provision of job-specific education, training, and assessment to ensure that healthcare personnel possess IP competency.
• Competency Assessment: The verification of IP competency through the use of knowledge-based testing and direct observation. If direct observation is not included as part of a competency assessment, an alternative method to ensure that healthcare personnel possess essential knowledge, skills, and abilities should be used.
• Audit: Direct observation or monitoring of healthcare personnel adherence to job-specific IP measures.
• Feedback: A summary of audit findings that is used to target performance improvement.