COVID-19 Infection Prevention Considerations for Behavioral Health Settings (February 2022)

Course Overview 

Presented by Michelle Doll, MD, MPH, Diane Heipel, BSN, RN, CIC, and Kaila Cooper, MSN, RN, CIC, this recorded webinar discusses how COVID-19 has altered the delivery of healthcare across the continuum and highlighted distinct challenges in caring for psychiatric patients. Hear directly from the VCU Healthcare System Infection Prevention Program team on how they navigated COVID-19 outbreaks and developed protocols for managing COVID-19 positive patients in their psychiatric care settings.

Target Audience

Target audience for this course are healthcare professionals who are or will be directly involved in infection prevention activities in behavioral health facilities. These are infection prevention professionals who have participated in and gained considerable knowledge through specialized infection and control training and have minimal to moderate practice or fieldwork experience with infection prevention and control concepts.

Audience examples: Advanced beginner to proficient infection preventionists, advanced beginner to proficient HAI/AR/IPC staff, novice to proficient healthcare or public health epidemiologists.

Overall Learning Objectives

• Identify the unique challenges behavioral health facilities have in infection control during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Describe outbreak response strategies in communal living facilities
• Describe the importance of communication between stakeholders in designed management protocols for COVID-19 in special settings