Gastro Guardians: Healthcare Food Safety Through Prevention, Policies and Practice

Session Description: This session will provide Infection Preventionists the resources and guidance to conduct dietary food service and retail food establishment assessments and understand how to interpret kitchen observations to comply with regulatory standards and federal, state, and local codes, laws, and regulations. It will also provide Infection Preventionists with a toolkit to manage and report possible healthcare-associated foodborne illness outbreaks.

Conducting regular assessments of the dietary food service and retail food establishments can provide valuable insight into preventing risk factors of foodborne illnesses. Many Infection Preventionists may be unfamiliar with these spaces and how to communicate effectively with dietary food service leadership and employees. This session will provide a step-by-step guide on rounding in dietary food service locations and the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) system.

Due to the kitchen being a space some Infection Preventionists may be inexperienced with, interpreting the many sights and sounds of a working kitchen to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and federal, state, and local codes, laws, and regulations can be challenging. This session will explain the dos and don’ts of dietary food service activities such as holding and cooking temperatures, proper cleaning and sanitizing, and preventing cross-contamination, along with many more examples.

Managing foodborne illness outbreaks in the healthcare setting is a complicated, time-consuming process and reporting the information in a timely manner is critical. This session will outline a toolkit to help compile significant foodborne illness outbreak information and how to partner with public health authorities such as local and state health departments in accordance with law and hospital policies and procedures. Real life examples of managing and reporting foodborne outbreaks at a large (1,200+ bed) acute care hospital will be demonstrated.