Infection Control & Prevention

Respiratory protection is not just a piece of equipment. It is a system, and a system that fails at any point puts the people wearing the equipment at serious risk of exposure to airborne pathogens. Ontario healthcare workers learned this lesson with brutal clarity during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the province’s regulatory expectations around respiratory […]

Healthcare construction is one of the most underappreciated infection transmission risks in clinical environments. When walls are opened, ceilings disturbed, and air handling systems disrupted, fungal spores, dust particles, and environmental pathogens that have been dormant for years become immediately airborne. Immunocompromised patients in adjacent spaces can develop invasive aspergillosis or other opportunistic infections within

Multi-drug resistant organisms have reshaped infection prevention in congregate living settings in ways that standard cleaning protocols were never designed to address. MRSA and VRE are not simply difficult-to-treat pathogens. They are environmental survivors that colonize residents, persist on surfaces, and spread silently through shared spaces and staff hands. Managing MDROs in long-term care homes,

Every dental instrument that contacts mucous membranes or breaks the skin barrier carries a transmission risk if not reprocessed correctly. The choice between steam sterilization and chemical disinfection is not a matter of preference. It is a clinical and regulatory decision governed by instrument classification, material compatibility, and Public Health Ontario standards. Getting this wrong

Infection prevention in childcare settings carries consequences that extend far beyond regulatory compliance. Children under five have developing immune systems, making daycares one of the highest-risk environments for rapid pathogen transmission. Public Health Ontario has established clear IPAC guidelines that licensed childcare operators must follow, yet many facilities still have critical gaps in their day-to-day

Veterinary hospitals occupy a unique and often underappreciated position in the infection prevention landscape. They are healthcare facilities where both the patients and the pathogens differ fundamentally from the human healthcare environment, and where the risk of zoonotic disease transmission from animal to human is a daily operational reality. Zoonotic disease prevention requires a specialized

An unannounced RHRA inspection is one of the most stressful events a retirement home operator can face, and the homes that navigate it with confidence are not those that happened to have everything in order by coincidence on the day the inspector arrived. They are the homes that have built operational systems strong enough to

If your Ontario long-term care home has received IPAC funding and the expiry date is approaching, the decisions you make in the coming weeks will determine whether that investment produces lasting compliance value or becomes a rushed, poorly documented expenditure that satisfies neither the funder’s requirements nor your home’s actual infection prevention needs. Many LTC

Hand hygiene is universally recognized as the single most effective measure for preventing healthcare-associated infections, and yet hospitals across Canada and around the world continue to fall short of consistent compliance at the point of care. The four moments of hand hygiene framework, developed and promoted by the World Health Organization, gives healthcare workers a

If you manage a long-term care home in Ontario, IPAC lapse prevention is no longer a background concern, it is a front-line operational priority in 2026. Regulatory scrutiny has intensified, unannounced inspections are increasing, and the consequences of non-compliance now include mandatory orders, public disclosure, and reputational damage that is difficult to recover from. This