The AHE awards and recognition program acknowledges and elevates professionals who have demonstrated the highest level of excellence and leadership. Award recipients are those who work towards advocating and educating themselves on best practices and standards, developing new leaders within a hospital or healthcare facility, and promoting the environmental services profession.

Applications are due June 9, 2017.

AHE has started this initiative to encourage professionals in the field to begin, or continue to refer to the departments and the personnel caring for the healthcare environment as environmental services professionals rather than as housekeepers, janitors and custodians. The staff and management teams responsible for maintaining the clinical environment of care require different skills and competencies from those needed in the commercial cleaning and general maintenance industry and it's time we address this critical distinction.

Please help us redefine healthcare environmental services!

Mike Hrickiewicz, Health Facilities Management
The physical environment provides the foundation upon which health care organizations excel.

Lewis Lefteroff, MSIE, Health Facilities Management
Materials management is an underappreciated health care operation that either enables or undermines the organization's greater mission

Healthcare Facilities Today
Today’s healthcare providers are embracing Evidence-Based Design (EBD) principles, which are based on the profound effect of the build environment on patients’ experiences and outcomes, as well as the health and well-being of the staff.

Mickey Crowe, CleanLink
I use the term "waxing" on purpose, but understand that we normally use "floor finish" these days.

Gemma Gardner, Cambridge Independent
A team of six people each day tackle the mountain of material, with more than 100,000 articles passing through their hands in a normal week.

Einav Keet, Contagion Live
In a sign that the flu season is possibly slowing in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recently reported a slight decrease in influenza activity, though the virus is still widespread in most of the country and the elderly have been hard hit this season.

Jamie Morgan, Health Facilities Management
The World Health Organization (WHO) has compiled a dirty-dozen list of sorts, detailing 12 families of bacteria that it believes pose the greatest threat to human health because of their growing resistance to antibiotics.

Brian Zimmerman, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality
Using an antifungal medication in tandem with antibiotics can successfully eliminate multidrug-resistant superbugs, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Microbiology.

Brian Zimmerman, Becker's Infection Control & Clinical Quality
More mosquito species than previously thought may be capable of spreading the Zika virus, according to a new study published in eLife.

Infection Control Today
The first study investigating parental attitudes toward the UK's child flu vaccine has found concerns about safety and side effects may negatively influence uptake, and recommends that public health messages need to be reinforced.

John Hall, Forbes
Leadership is tricky. It’s more than the title you hold within your company or how many people you manage, but how far does its definition reach?

Karina Fabian, Business News Daily
Humility might not be the first quality that comes to mind when you think of leadership skills, but studies are showing that it is one of the most vital characteristics of successful leaders.

By Walter Vernon

By Cindy Nuesslein, RN, MBA, FACHE

Make yourself indispensable and advance your career! Plan your education for 2017. Visit AHE’s brand-new 2017 ENGAGE site to learn more about educational courses, podcasts, webinars, and events. And make sure to check out AHE's new EXPRESS Learning Courses. EXPRESS is a mobile learning platform that offers educational podcasts delivered by environmental services and infection prevention thought leaders. You asked for learning opportunities that require less of a time commitment and we delivered!

CMIP, the Certificate of Mastery in Infection Prevention for Environmental Services Professionals (CMIP) is a robust certificate program which requires online pre-work and an in-person training session, along with an optional post-session capstone project/assessment. This intensive 30-hour certificate program provides Environmental Services professionals with the requisite knowledge to meet the CMS requirements for a "trained" professional in infection prevention and control specific to the clinical environment of care.