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Becoming a Legionella prevention expert: Get certified on ASSE 12080

Healthcare Life Safety Compliance, February 18, 2021

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.

An interview with Dr. Janet Stout, discoverer of the Legionella/hospital water link and certification trainer

by Brian Ward

Legionella is the white whale of both infection preventionists and facilities managers. It is found everywhere, grows rapidly in warm water, has a 25% fatality rate for hospitalized patients, and has grown by nine times in case numbers since 2000. CMS, The Joint Commission, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), and many other regulatory bodies have made defeating Legionella a focus.

Despite this, it’s often been unclear what qualifications or training should be required of a Legionella professional or expert. It is a gap that has left many infection preventionists or facility engineers unsure of what they need to know to protect patients, and created opportunity for unscrupulous vendors to claim expertise on the organism.

To fix this, the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) teamed up to create ASSE Standard 12080, which “outlines the minimum qualifications needed, including knowledge and competency, to become a member of a water safety team involved in the development of a risk assessment analysis, and water management and sampling plan, for protection from Legionella and other waterborne pathogens.”

This is an excerpt from a member only article. To read the article in its entirety, please login or subscribe to Healthcare Life Safety Compliance.

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