As a supervisor of Environmental Services in a LTACH, the importance of understanding how to keep my staff safe and teach them to understand the importance of blood born pathogens and how and when to don PPE is of the greatest priority.  Many of my staff are new to working in a healthcare facility and unaware of how important they are in the chain of infection control prior to training.  In fact, the majority have never heard of the term blood born pathogen, let alone know how to safely clean or treat a potentially contaminated area.   Additionally, being up to date on best practices and training supports me in being able to provide clear and concise training.

Patients admitted into an LTACH are considered long term. The janitors regularly interact with the patients and can develop relationships with them during their stays.  An unfortunate downside to this is as they become more accustomed and friendly with the patients, their familiarity and comfortableness can lead to an unintentional lack of adherence to our standards of care.  As the janitors are not privy to patients' medical information they can potentially put themselves at great risk for contracting a blood borne pathogen.  In these cases, the janitors need retraining.  

In a supervisory role, the above is one example of how the janitors are continuously observed and reassessed.  As a primary educator within our EVS department, having a strong understanding of blood borne pathogens, how to clean, disinfect, don PPE, etc. is mandatory.  As a facility, we cannot expect to maintain a clean and safe hospital without this knowledge and having supervisors and educators with the ability to teach it to others.