Certification for infection control practitioners: the time is now.

As advances in medical care and technology extend our lifespan beyond that of any prior civilization, dramatic changes are occurring in the pattern of health care delivery. Included in these changes is a rapid acceleration in the utilization of biomedical knowledge and technology, which has spawned an increasingly larger number of allied health professions and personnel. The recent growth of Infection Control as a profession and organizations such as the Association for Practitioners in Infection Control (APIC) illustrate this trend. As a consequence of such rapid growth, health manpower issues have become increasingly important. Increased federal funding for the development of health care personnel reflects a national consensus concerning the importance of education, training and full utilization of the nation's manpower resources. Understandably, the American taxpayer wants an equitable return of this public investment. Credentialing* of health care personnel has experienced a sharp increase in the last quarter of a century, due mainly to specialization in both established and new professions. In the past, health care issues such as licensure and certification were thought to be the concern of only the professional individuals and organizations that were affected by them. Today there is general agreement and intense concern by the public, federal government, and national health organizations 'CREDENTIALING: The formal recognition of professional or technical competence. "Credentialing" is a generic term referring to the processes of certification and licensure. CERTIFICATION: The process by which a nongovernmental agency or association grants recognition to an individual who has met certain predetermined qualifications specified by that agency or association. LICENSURE: The process by which an agency of government grants permission to an individual to engage in a given occupation upon finding that the applicant has attained the minimal degree of competency necessary to ensure that the public health, safety, and welfare will be reasonably well protected. EDITORIAL as well as professional organizations that the public should be protected from incompetent practitioners acting under the guise of competence, and that to assure competence some appropriate measures of qualification should be applied. Health care delivery is too dynamic, too important to consumers, for health professionals to be utterly unregulated. Federal government interest in credentialing stems primarily from the large sums spent for health manpower training and for services reimbursed under federal health insurance programs. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Department of Justice and Labor, the Federal Trade Commission, …