6/17/2026 | 10:45 AM-11:45 AM
Strengthening Infection Prevention in Rural Healthcare Facilities: Insights, Innovations and Strategies
Session Description: Healthcare facilities in rural settings often face unique challenges related to staffing, geography, available resources, and education and training. While these challenges may contribute to difficulties implementing strong infection prevention and control (IPC) and patient safety programs, they may also spur innovation in rural healthcare facilities. Recent national public health efforts have focused on understanding the rural IPC landscape and developing activities and strategies that support the implementation of IPC in rural healthcare facilities. These activities included the launch of a national rural IPC and patient safety community of practice (CoP) for state health departments, direct training and technical assistance for critical access hospitals (CAHs), and collaborations between national organizations to gain insights and develop strategies focused on IPC implementation. These collaborative efforts included conducting focus groups with staff in rural healthcare facilities to better understand the challenges, innovations, and needs related to IPC in low-resourced, rural settings. This panel presentation will provide an overview of the landscape of IPC and patient safety in rural healthcare systems, including findings from data reported to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). Panelists will share unique insights gained through their work in and with rural healthcare facilities. Special attention will be given to challenges and successes identified through the national CoP, focus group findings, and first-hand experience leading an IPC program in a CAH. Panelists will highlight key strategies that support successful implementation of IPC and patient safety programs in rural healthcare facilities and will identify readily available tools and resources participants can use and adapt for their own settings.
Stephen Perez
Lead, Priority Populations Team, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Stephen is a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S Public Health Service and is the Lead for the Priority Populations Team in the Health Systems, Strengthening, Resilience and Training Branch within the Division of Health Care Quality Promotion at the CDC. His team provides support for strengthening infection prevention programs at Indian Health Service facilities and rural healthcare systems. This team is also responsible for developing implementation guidance for environmental infection prevention and control. Prior to this work he was an epidemilogist in the Division of HIV Prevention and an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the New Jersey Department of Health in the communicable disease service where he lead multiple outbreak investigations in community and healthcare settings. He completed his undergraduate degree at St. Mary’s College of CA, his nurse practitioner training at the University of California, San Francisco and his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kristin Preihs
Vice President, American Hospital Assocaition
Kristin Preihs is Vice President at the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), part of the American Hospital Association, where she leads a national portfolio focused on patient safety, clinical quality, and technology-enabled transformation. With more than 15 years of experience in public health and healthcare quality, she has secured and managed programming in federal, philanthropic, and private investments to advance innovation across hospitals and health systems. Kristin oversees major initiatives including the AHA Patient Safety Initiative, supporting hospitals in reducing preventable harm and strengthening infection prevention and control. Her work focuses on helping health systems adopt practical, data-driven tools, including AI-supported workflows, real-time surveillance, and clinical decision supports that improve safety and resilience. Known for connecting vision to execution, Kristin collaborates with hospitals, federal agencies, and innovators to accelerate scalable improvement and build safer, smarter care for patients nationwide.
Maggie Busta
Infection Preventionist & Nursing Education Coordinator, WinnMed
Roger Stienecker
Medical Director for Clinical Care Reliabilty--Growth Markets, Parkview Health
Roger Scott Stienecker MD FACP FSHEA FIDSA is a graduate of The Ohio State University School of Medicine with Internal Medicine Residency at Wake Forest University then fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Emory School of Medicine. After 22 years in private practice seeing over 27,000 unique patients, he pursued hospital epidemiology with a desire to better serve population health. Starting 2012, he became the Medical Director of Epidemiology Infection Prevention, Antimicrobial Stewardship, and Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials for Parkview Health System. The department has 25+ members in IP, epidemiology and data analytics. Parkview Health is a 1284 bed, 15 hospital system, plus several affiliated hospitals. As of January 2026, he assumed responsibility to provide Infection Prevention and Stewardship services to the affiliated hospitals as the Medical Director for Clinical Care Reliability--Growth Markets. He is on the planning committee for Association for Professionals of Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) national meeting.