Advancing Infection Prevention and Control in the United States PEPFAR Programs.

Infection prevention and control (IPC) systems and practices are essential to ensuring safe healthcare delivery. The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) prioritized IPC in healthcare settings and made significant progress in strengthening IPC across its programs and supported facilities, highlighted in this report. A short-term task team expanded PEPFAR's existing IPC requirements and policies and advanced systems to support adherence to normative guidance. Key IPC advances included the incorporation of IPC into PEPFAR's core program standards; the expansion of IPC standards, in line with global standards; the development of tailored IPC guidance and tools to specifically address PEPFAR-supported medical services; the addition of new indicators to PEPFAR's quality assurance tool to enhance IPC monitoring; and the establishment of an approach to IPC monitoring and evaluation to guide improvement interventions. These system advances were intended to identify challenges and drive improvements to IPC standards.