Most hospital leaders cannot tell you where EVS fits in the chain of infection.
The answer is the environmental reservoir. That is where EVS works. We do not wait for a pathogen to reach a patient. We remove it from the environment before transmission is possible. That is not support work. That is infection prevention.
Earlier this year I completed the Certificate of Mastery in Infection Prevention through the Association for the Health Care Environment. I am now one of five professionals in the state of Washington to hold this certification.
The coursework is not light. Spaulding Classification. Airborne Infection Isolation versus Protective Environment rooms and the pressure engineering that separates them. Outbreak response protocols. Disinfectant science down to contact time, EPA registration, and the difference between enveloped and non-enveloped viruses.
My capstone was a formal case study documenting my leadership of a real crusted scabies outbreak across multiple facilities. Identification, protocol development, regulatory documentation, evidence-based literature. Academic review. Everything the CMIP teaches, applied to a situation that actually happened.
We are not the last line of defense. We are a primary line of defense.
EVS has been seen as a support function for too long. The CMIP does not allow that framing. The people responsible for disinfection, isolation cleaning, and infection prevention in our facilities are infection control professionals. That is what the credential says. It is also simply true.
If you work in EVS leadership and have not looked into the CHESP, the CMIP, or the T-CNACC, start. Not for the credential. For what the learning does to how you see your own work.
This profession deserves professionals who know exactly how important it is.
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