Purpose and Scope of Alliance:

The ultimate purpose of the alliance would be to improve overall outcomes, from which we would mutually benefit from each other's expertise as well as collaborate on educational initiatives. As a professional non-profit organization, MSIC strives to promote, establish, and enhance the highest quality standards to reduce the potential for and the risk of infectious and non-infectious outcomes. MSIC fosters this standard through formulation and implementation of current and developing guidelines, provision of educational resources, dissemination of information, and interaction with regulatory and legislative bodies.

MSIC today has over 400 infection control professionals who work in acute care, long-term care, home care, mental health, public health, correctional, and healthcare product organizations and facilities.

It is our organizations' understanding that there are many similarities between our two organizations' missions, most notably focused on prevention and education. The Mission of the MSIC is "to develop a knowledge network, provide educational resources, and promote science-based practices in partnership with the community". Our vision statement is to "promote healthy communities through epidemiology".

Benefits for this alliance would also include sharing resources for educational initiatives, building a stronger cooperative relationship between MIOSHA and MSIC, and developing innovative solutions for workplace health and safety.

Goals and Objectives of Alliance:

Building on a long history of collaboration and formal identification of liaison from MIOSHA to the Society, MSIC would offer a more active role in working with MIOSHA on standards or guidance, which affect quality outcomes for healthcare workers. In addition, our organization would provide infection control expertise where requested. It is hoped that through this shared alliance, our members would be better informed when new or revised standards are going to be released, and MSIC members would assist in the education. By example, an advisory board of members of the Society could assist with interpretation and questions related to enforcement of appropriate MIOSHA rules should disagreement arise between the healthcare facility and MIOSHA. Input from this advisory board would be non-binding but might assist in the decision making process. This would be particularly beneficial given the complexities involved in the chain of transmission of infectious agents within healthcare facilities by tapping into peer expertise of the Society's members.

• Outreach and Communication:
  
  MSIC communicates with its membership through a variety of means such as conferences and small group networking meetings. Other means of communicating with our membership include a quarterly MSIC newsletter, electronic communications, and a website www.msic-online.org
  
  MSIC's diverse board of directors and subcommittees or teams also serve as "ambassadors" to other professional and governmental organizations. This would provide additional resources and sources to disseminate communications.
  
  These mechanisms outlined above would be utilized under this alliance to convey new information to the Society's members. In addition, these media channels could be used to raise awareness of MIOSHA's regional and statewide conferences provided by its CET Division. In turn, MIOSHA would make a concerted effort to assure timely transfer of impending regulations, revised directives, notices of conferences, etc. to MSIC.
  
  
• Training and Education:
  
  MSIC coordinates a variety of educational sessions for their membership. MSIC has established a bi-annual educational conference, which is usually held in Lansing. In addition, there is an intensive three-day "Fundamentals" educational session for new infection control professionals representing a variety of health care settings. MSIC also offers a Certification Review Course for members who are interested in becoming certified or renewing certification in infection control (CBIC). MSIC also provides, in collaboration with the Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology- Greater Detroit (APIC-GD), and other health care associations [(i.e. BCBSM, Michigan Antibiotic Resistance Reduction collation (MARR)] one-day educational sessions, or pre-conferences on topics of interest to the society's members, other healthcare professionals and the public. Under this alliance MSIC proposes to explore not only inclusion of MIOSHA personnel in standing conference but development of jointly sponsored initiatives.
  
  MSIC proposes to use their well-established framework of educational conferences and networking to communicate new or revised regulations/compliance directives, MIOSHA conferences, letters of interpretation, etc. Incorporation of MIOSHA personnel into MSIC conference faculty will also be explored as well as feasibility of joint educational initiatives on a regional basis.
  
  
• Promoting Dialogue:
  
  MSIC has, as part of its organization an Advocacy /Regulatory team. This team is comprised of key liaison representatives from MIOSHA, MDCH, and the Emergency Preparedness Advisory Committee (statewide committee), and others as needed. This team monitors regulatory and legislative action on a national and state level. It also engages and collaborates with other professional organizations to actively promote public health and improve healthcare quality and safety in all settings. The Advocacy Committee will serve as the key point of bi-directional communication between MIOSHA and the Society's membership. From this committee other electronic, written and educational presentations will be utilized to facilitate dialogue between MSIC and MIOSHA.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Teri Lee Dyke, RN,BSN,CIC- MSIC President 2004*
Sue Lloyd, MT(ASCP), CHSP, CIC - MSIC President-Elect 2004
Russell N. Olmsted, MPH,CIC - MSIC President-elect 2005* (pending 2004 election results)
Linda Scott, RN, BSN, CIC - Advocacy Chair 2003-2004*

* MSIC maintains an elected board of directors

Outcomes of Alliance Activities:

MSIC desires and anticipates this alliance with MIOSHA would be mutually beneficial for each of our organizations, and there would be benefit from the expertise and assistance of our dynamic organization.

The potential for this alliance is to keep our membership of over 400 professionals apprised of key issues in healthcare quality and safety. The method of communication can be via any of the variety of means specified in the outreach and communication section. Another expected outcome is improved collaboration between our two organizations.

Initiation and Cancellation of Agreement:

The alliance agreement is effective on the date of signing and will be in effect for ___. Prior to the expiration of the agreement, the parties will confer and evaluate whether the agreement should be extended. Without regard to the term of the agreement, any of the parties can terminate the agreement with 30 days written notification.