The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society (PIDS) have issued the following statement:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) is a critical asset to the nation’s public health infrastructure. It provides evidence-based guidance that directly informs federal healthcare standards and protects both patients and healthcare workers across hospitals, outpatient clinics, and extended care facilities. HICPAC’s recommendations are the basis for healthcare practices that facilities use daily to keep people safe from complications from healthcare-associated infections (including disinfection and sterilization practices for patient-care instruments and equipment, isolation precautions for infectious diseases both confirmed and suspected, and disease-specific care and guidance recommendations). These guidelines inform facility-level policies, procedures, and standard work to keep patients and health care workers safe.

"The decision to terminate HICPAC creates a preventable gap in national preparedness and response capacity, leaving healthcare facilities without timely, evidence-based and expert-driven recommendations at a time when threats from emerging pathogens and antimicrobial resistance are on the rise. The committee’s interdisciplinary composition—drawing on expertise in epidemiology, infectious disease, infection prevention, hospital administration, occupational health, and patient advocacy —ensures that its guidance is scientifically rigorous and operationally practical. Disbanding HICPAC jeopardizes decades of progress in preventing healthcare-associated infections. The depth of HICPAC's review of scientific evidence and its members' hundreds of years of collective experience result in guidelines widely accepted as the standard of care by healthcare accrediting organizations and CMS. The absence of this committee’s guidance creates a significant void in the field, fosters uncertainty among healthcare facilities, and put patients at risk.

"HICPAC is an essential component of patient safety, and its contributions cannot be replicated by the private sector. As professional societies representing the infection prevention and infectious diseases community, we strongly urge CDC through HHS to reinstate HICPAC to preserve a resilient, coordinated, and science-driven public health infrastructure."

Source: SHEA