For infection preventionists (IPs), continuing education is not an optional professional extra. It is how practitioners maintain certification, keep pace with emerging pathogens and technologies, and bring new practices back to their facilities. But recent changes, not announced on LinkedIn, but noted on the CBIC website involving infection prevention units (IPUs), have ignited a much larger debate: Should the credibility of infection prevention education depend on the content being taught or on who signs the educator's paycheck?
That question drove a pointed discussion among IPs on Infection Control Today®’s (ICT®’s) Contagious Conversations podcast. Hosts Jill Holdsworth, MS, CIC, AL-CIP, FAPIC, NREMT, CRCST, CHL, and Brenna Doran, PhD, MA, ACC, CIC, AL-CIP, were joined by Rebecca Battjes, MPH, CIC, FAPIC, and Carole W. Kamangu, MPH, RN, CIC, to discuss changes affecting how educational activities involving industry partners qualify for IPUs through the Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc.
The conversation quickly moved beyond continuing education credits. Panelists questioned transparency, access, cost, professional expertise, and the possibility that efforts intended to protect education from commercial bias could inadvertently eliminate some of the profession's most experienced educators.
"If you're listening to this and you're thinking, 'Hmm, I don't know what they're talking about,' I guarantee you, you're not alone," Holdsworth said. "And that's basically the issue here, because the communication was zero."
When a National Conference Session Suddenly Doesn't Count
Battjes, senior clinical advisor of infection prevention for Diversey, has worked in infection prevention for 21 years. Her first indication that something had changed came at APIC 2026 in Nashville.
She was presenting a follow-up to her interactive MythBusters educational program when she noticed something odd: Her session showed zero IPUs or continuing education credits.
The previous year's sessions had qualified.
Initially, Battjes assumed it was a mistake. Only after the conference, when she began reviewing attendee evaluations, did she realize there was a larger problem.
"I recognized that my session was one of the only sessions that had zero IPU or CEs, which was strange because the year prior, both sessions met for CE and IPU. I thought it was a typo.... And then after the conference is when I realized nothing had changed."
Battjes contacted conference representatives and colleagues to understand what happened. She said she was told it was an oversight and would not happen again. Yet the credit was not restored.
What troubled her most was not simply losing credit for a single presentation. It was what that decision communicated about educational value.
"I look at it as a frontline IP. I go to something, I expect to earn something, or I sit there for an hour, have a very meaningful learning experience, I would argue more so than reading a journal article just off the bat, and to learn that that was an hour that didn't count is invalidating."
That distinction matters because conference attendance is often justified to hospital leadership, in part, on the grounds of continuing education opportunities. Frontline IPs may not have hours during the workweek to read literature, attend webinars, and independently accumulate recertification credits. Conferences consolidate education into a few precious days.
As Battjes put it, frontline IPs attend conferences "to get the max amount of IPUs for their recertification," often completing additional evaluations to accumulate credits before returning to already demanding workloads.
Is the Educator the Problem, or Should the Content Be Judged?
The most provocative question raised during the discussion was deceptively simple: If an expert moves from a hospital to industry, when exactly does that person's knowledge become less credible?
Kamangu, CEO of Dumontel Healthcare Consulting, has spent 16 years in health care and more than 12 years in public health. She questioned whether the new approach effectively changes the way subject-matter expertise is valued.
"I'm a little confused as to who is considered an industry partner. I believe all of us here are subject matter experts, and we all have different expertise, we have different backgrounds, so we bring something different to the table. So, what I'm very confused about is our expertise now, did they decide that it's not valuable anymore?"
Holdsworth seized on that question.
She acknowledged that explanations may say the issue is not about an individual's expertise. But she argued that the practical result can feel remarkably similar.
"Did they just decide we weren't valuable anymore? And I feel like that's very powerful because I keep seeing things that say this has nothing to do with value or expertise. But does it? Because it's making us feel that our value has been demoted."
The panelists were not arguing that commercial bias should be ignored. Quite the opposite. Bartles repeatedly stressed that education must remain unbiased and product agnostic.
But she challenged a system that may use employment status as a proxy for educational credibility rather than evaluating education itself.
Battjes noted that she speaks frequently on environmental hygiene because it is the area in which she conducts much of her research. She said she does not put her company's logo on her slides and has never been accused, based on conference evaluations, of inserting product promotion into her educational sessions.
"We have to be very cautious.... This is a privilege to educate people, and if we have any crossover and the material becomes biased, we lose that trust. So I think perhaps the intent is well-intentioned. However, it doesn't make logistical sense."
That may be the central tension in the controversy.
The profession needs safeguards against commercial influence. But protecting learners from biased education and excluding educators because of their employers are not necessarily the same thing.
The Cost of "Free" Infection Prevention Education
Another potential consequence could be felt far beyond national conferences.
Industry partners and consultants provide substantial amounts of free or low-cost education to infection preventionists. If organizations must pursue additional outside accreditation to make those programs eligible for IPUs, somebody must absorb that expense.
And accreditation can be costly.
Holdsworth said vendors were learning about the changes largely by chance, despite some being strategic partners that make significant financial investments in professional organizations.
"There's been zero communication to strategic partners of APIC, who I won't say how much we pay, but we pay a lot of money every year.... It's not a great way to find out by chance that something like this is going to really impact what we do."
For large companies, additional accreditation costs may be frustrating. For small consulting businesses, however, the economics could fundamentally change whether educational programs can be offered affordably.
Kamangu used considerably stronger language.
"As a small business, it feels like, if I will use technical textbook, business textbook, it feels like a hostile takeover where you feel like the little guy is pushed to the side, even though they can bring something important to the table."
Her concern extends beyond US-based IPs. Kamangu works with professionals in lower-income countries who may already struggle to afford North American educational opportunities. Low-cost programs that also provide IPUs can therefore serve both professional development and equity.
"If they're already outside of the country, can't afford anything that's prepared in North America, and now they can't get the IPUs through credible sources that offer it at a lower cost for them, I mean, what does that say of us?" she asked. "When we think about equity, is this really equitable?"
A Rule So Complicated That Experts Cannot Explain It
The conversation became particularly pointed when panelists tried to work through who qualifies as an industry partner and under what circumstances education might still qualify.
Could an industry-employed IP independently develop a presentation? Could the company pay for the person's travel but not the hour spent presenting? Would the educator need to take paid time off? What happens when an independent consultant is sponsored by an industry company? Does selling consulting services make the consultant an industry partner?
The discussion produced more questions than answers.
"Clear as mud," Holdsworth said.
Doran highlighted another contradiction. Independent consultants technically sell services, even when they do not manufacture disinfectants, devices, or other health care products.
"We do technically sell a product. We do sell a service," she said, questioning exactly how "products and services" should be defined when determining who qualifies as an industry partner.
For IPC professionals accustomed to writing policies that must be understandable enough for frontline workers to implement correctly, that ambiguity itself should raise concerns.
If experienced infection preventionists, consultants, educators, and industry professionals cannot confidently determine what qualifies, how are frontline IPs supposed to navigate the system?
Judge the Education, Not the Business Card
By the end of the conversation, Bartles offered perhaps the clearest potential solution.
Stop trying to decide credibility primarily by categorizing the educator.
Evaluate the education.
"At the end of the day, the content is what matters less so than where somebody works. So if I look at the solution, I think all of this, where you're employed, etc., it's relevant, but ultimately, there needs to be review by a credible reviewer that would validate and confirm that your content is product agnostic, unbiased, valuable to the profession."
That approach would not eliminate scrutiny. It could actually increase it.
Educational materials could be reviewed for evidence quality, scientific accuracy, commercial bias, product mentions, learning objectives, and relevance to infection prevention practice. Educators could disclose financial relationships. Organizations could reject sessions that cross the line into promotion.
But the decision would hinge on what is being taught, not simply where the educator works.
Doran suggested that professional organizations could create committees of qualified IPs to conduct such reviews or develop reasonably priced mechanisms to vet IPU-eligible content.
The panel's ultimate request was not that the industry receive a free pass. It was that the profession has a transparent conversation about what the rules are trying to accomplish and whether the current approach is the best way to accomplish it.
Kamangu called for a "fireside chat" involving CBIC, APIC, industry, consultants, and other members of the IPC community rather than relying on individual email exchanges.
"At the end of the day, this affects the entire IPC community," she said. "Whether you're a nurse, you're an SPD professional, it doesn't matter who it is, it's going to affect everyone."
And that may be the uncomfortable issue infection prevention needs to confront.
Preventing commercial influence is essential. Protecting the integrity of certification is essential. Maintaining rigorous educational standards is essential.
But so is ensuring that some of the profession's most knowledgeable people do not suddenly become less "credible" the day they accept a job outside a hospital.
Because expertise does not disappear when an IP changes employers.
And if the education is scientifically sound, unbiased, transparent, product agnostic, and valuable to practice, the question deserves to be asked:
Shouldn't that be what counts?
