Infection Prevention and Control — IPAC in most regulatory documents, IPC for short — is the discipline of keeping care settings from transmitting infection: hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, environmental cleaning, safe injection practices, and the reprocessing of reusable medical devices. In a clinic or surgical facility, IPAC isn't a poster on the wall; it's a program, with an owner, written procedures, training, and monitoring.
Regulators treat IPAC as a first-class inspection subject. In Alberta, CPSA assesses IPAC practice in community clinics and weights it heavily in NHSF accreditation; other provincial Colleges do the same. Assessors look for the program's paper trail as much as its practice — cleaning logs, reprocessing records, staff training, and how breaches are detected and handled.
Why it matters
IPAC failures are the fastest route to patient harm and to regulatory findings — and most documented IPAC deficiencies are process gaps (no log, no owner, no schedule), which are also the cheapest to fix.
Go deeper — practical guides
- What Is an IPC Inspection? The CPSA IPAC Practice Visit, Explained for Alberta ClinicsWhat a CPSA IPC inspection (IPAC practice visit) really checks in Alberta clinics — hand hygiene, sharps, reprocessing — and how to be genuinely ready.
- Infection Prevention & Control in an NHSF under CPSA StandardsCPSA's NHSF infection-prevention standard runs a documented IPC program: a trained lead, hand hygiene and the 4 Moments, PPE, environmental cleaning, and SSI surveillance.
- Preparing for a CPSA IPC Inspection: A Checklist for Medical ClinicsA practical checklist to get your Alberta medical clinic ready for a CPSA infection prevention & control (IPC) inspection — and stay ready year-round.