Infection Prevention and Control chapter fully revised for laboratories

Effective July 1, 2025, a fully revised Infection Prevention and Control (IC) chapter, including new and revised requirements, has been approved for Joint Commission-accredited laboratories.
 
Effective and well-organized IC practices are necessary to ensure patient safety in laboratory settings where infection risks may arise from manually handling specimens and sharps, and deliberately amplifying infectious organisms for testing purposes. The goal of the IC chapter rewrite is to help organizations develop a strong framework for their IC activities and remove requirements that do not add value to accreditation surveys. These changes are consistent with the ongoing Joint Commission initiative to simplify its requirements and provide more meaningful evaluations of healthcare organizations.

The chapter includes new Standard IC.07.01.01 and two new elements of performance (EPs) to enhance laboratories’ preparedness for high-consequence infectious diseases or special pathogens. The standard was developed after reviewing literature on emerging infectious disease preparedness and consulting with a technical advisory panel. Recent infectious disease outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), H1N1 influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Ebola, and other actively ongoing global outbreaks (for example, clade I mpox, Marburg virus disease), have clearly demonstrated that emerging infectious diseases pose a real threat to human health and can significantly disrupt local, national, and global healthcare delivery systems. The new requirements’ standardized protocol-based approach to preparing for high-consequence infectious diseases or special pathogens is based on fundamental infection control principles and serves to protect laboratory staff and the public.
 
The IC chapter rewrite continues the project that includes new and revised requirements that replaced current IC requirements for critical access hospitals, hospitals, assisted living communities, home care organizations, nursing care centers, behavioral health care and human services organizations, and office-based surgery practices.
 
The Joint Commission also created a new IC Assessment Tool that details practices and structures to meet the IC requirements. The tool was developed using regulations and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Core IC Practices. The tool is available on the Joint Commission Connect® extranet site, and will be added to the Laboratory Accreditation Survey Activity Guide in spring 2025.
 
The new and revised requirements will publish online in the spring 2025 E-dition® update to the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Laboratory and Point-of-Care Testing (CAMLAB).
 
For more information, please contact the Joint Commission’s Department of Standards and Survey Methods.

See the Prepublication Standards (includes a reference guide showing where concepts from the old EPs have moved in the new EPs).