September 11, 2026- As healthcare continues its steady shift toward outpatient care, infection prevention leaders are adapting strategies to manage risk across a growing network of ambulatory facilities. Procedures that once took place almost exclusively inside hospitals are increasingly being performed in ambulatory surgery centers, physician offices and specialty clinics. While these settings offer efficiency and convenience, they also bring unique challenges for infection prevention teams responsible for protecting patients and staff.
At Northside Hospital, Kaleb Price, MPH, CIC, FAPIC, oversees infection prevention efforts across procedural areas that span both hospital and outpatient environments. As Clinical Manager of the Procedural Infection Prevention Team, Price and his colleagues focus on locations where invasive procedures or anesthesia are performed – ranging from operating rooms to gastrointestinal labs and interventional procedure suites.
“We call our team the Procedural Infection Prevention Team,” Price said. “Procedures is pretty broad, but basically everywhere we might be doing invasive procedures or general anesthesia. So that’s operating rooms, pre-op and post-op areas, interventional radiology, interventional cardiology, and our GI labs where we do a lot of our scopes.”
In these settings, Price’s team is responsible for key infection prevention activities, including surgical site infection prevention, device reprocessing oversight, environmental hygiene practices and evaluating whether facilities are meeting appropriate standards for cleanliness and safety.
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