What 261 Infection Prevention and Healthcare Leaders Told Us This Year and What It Means for the Future of Your Health System
- Carole W. Kamangu
- Dec 17
- 7 min read
Written by Carole W. Kamangu
When we started this year, our focus on helping communities strengthen health systems through strategic infection prevention became our top priority. That mission guided every conversation, every resource we created and every leadership conversation we engaged in. This work extended beyond individual organizations into the broader healthcare and public health ecosystem.
Throughout the year, we started asking purposeful questions through offline conversations with leaders and across LinkedIn polls to help us better understand how infection prevention and control (IPC) professionals, program leaders, executives and frontline clinicians experience their systems.
Across 11 LinkedIn polls and 261 respondents, we came across the following themes:
Healthcare leaders are exhausted by fragmented, reactive systems
IPC leaders and their teams feel undervalued and underutilized
Communication gaps persist across organizational levels
Financial impact is deeply misunderstood
And the strategic value of infection prevention is significantly overlooked
This blog breaks down the biggest insights from the data and what they tell us about the future of IPC strategy, leadership alignment and organizational resilience.
Optimism in Strategic Infection Prevention as a Starting Point
To understand the system-level signals shaping infection prevention and control (IPC) strategy that would positively lead to healthcare system resilience, we began the year with a simple question: “How optimistic are you about your infection prevention program’s success this year?”
The results were somewhat encouraging at first: 52% of our poll respondents felt positive about the year ahead. But we noticed an imbalance: 29% were hesitant and 19% were unsure. Combining those last two, we realized that 48%, nearly half of the respondents, expressed uncertainty. Optimism was tangible but not across the board. An optimistic outlook helps create engagement and resilience even under pressure, and without it, success is hard to achieve.
So, we looked closely at the themes that emerged across our data to understand where the challenges were.
Theme 1: Leadership Misalignment as the #1 Barrier
As the year unfolded, we asked about the biggest hurdles facing infection prevention programs.
The top answer, reported by 33% of respondents, demonstrated that a lack of leadership support was considered the biggest challenge in leading effective infection prevention. This was followed closely by competency gaps (28%), sustainability challenges (28%) and stakeholder buy-in (11%).
These numbers tell a powerful story: the greatest barrier isn’t technical but organizational. This perception resurfaced in multiple subsequent polls that demonstrated that:
Executive leaders don’t truly understand the strategic value of infection prevention
Executive and infection prevention leaders often speak different languages and focus on opposing priorities thus perpetuating silos and the fragmentation of their systems
IPC work is still seen as a technical function limited to “compliance” and “policing” rather than organizational strategy
Critical IPC recommendations tend to be delayed or dismissed due to a lack of understanding of their importance for organizational success
IPC teams lack the authority to influence system-level change in many organizations
In other words, technical expertise exists but strategic alignment doesn’t.
This misalignment shows up in daily decisions, too. In another poll, 43% of respondents said that leadership decisions frequently conflicted with IPC recommendations, while only 5% said “never.” This friction point may be seen as a minor operational disconnect, but it is in fact a systemic issue that translates to negative patient outcomes, financial losses and reputational damages.
Systemic misalignment requires a systemic solution, not more technical training or additional protocols. This is why the first step of our IP PROPEL™ Framework focuses on aligning infection prevention strategy with executive leadership priorities. By focusing on leadership alignment, executives and IPC leaders can ensure that as an organization, they can move in the same direction and achieve success.
Theme 2: Most Organizations Are Not Measuring What Matters
When examined from a systems-thinking point of view, IPC is not a siloed function. It intersects with every department, every process, every regulatory checkpoint and every patient interaction. Its influence is palpable from interactions with the executive suite to the most overlooked frontline worker. Despite this strategic vantage point, infection prevention is still underutilized and, too often, excluded from strategic planning altogether.
One of our polls this year, on missed opportunities, revealed that 34% believe that infection prevention is excluded from strategic planning and 30% cited executive misalignment. That gap is why competing priorities continue to fragment healthcare systems and affect long-term organizational success and patient outcomes.
It’s clear that executives don’t often see IPC as a priority because it hasn’t been positioned as a business advantage. And often, it’s not presented as such by the very experts who advocate for its value. So, health systems not only deal with increasingly complex patients but also siloed systems where the leadership and infection prevention speak different languages. Until that changes, alignment will remain the first, and most critical, step.
Across another poll, 33% of respondents demonstrated that the cost of inaction in infection prevention remains a critical issue in many organizations. They reported that their organizations do not track the financial impact of poor IPC practices.
Studies show that:
Preventable infections cost hospitals between $10,000–$48,000 per case with an average of $31,000 in countries like the U.S. in 2017, which is likely higher in 2025 due to inflation and other compounding factors (Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) cost billions globally each year (Sources: World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Prevention and Control)
Infection-related system failures reduce public trust, staffing, organizational reputation and long-term stability
The poll data emphasizes what we see in organizations worldwide: Many organizations struggle and infection prevention expertise isn’t paired with financial and strategic fluency at the leadership level.
And the reality is that leaders want financial stability and strong brand equity, IPC leaders want influence and visibility, but both sides are speaking different languages and it costs more money every day.
Theme 3: Infection Prevention Leaders Know Their Work Extends Beyond the Hospital Walls
In a different poll, when asked whether poor IPC practices affect their communities long-term, 92% said yes. This shows that the mindset shift toward systems thinking is already emerging organically among IPC professionals even when their organizations aren’t structured to support it.
It’s important to support this mindset as health care is becoming increasingly complex. Healthcare organizations must focus less on siloed work that limits itself at meeting regulatory compliance in the short-term and move beyond it towards system-level impact.
Theme 4: Communication Breakdowns Are Universal
Multiple polls with respondents from around the world revealed communication barriers across different levels of healthcare organizations: Executives, IPC teams, clinicians, frontline staff, and public health partners.
From your comments and direct messages on LinkedIn, the pattern shows that, on one hand, executives don’t clearly see the connection between IPC-related metrics and their system-level priorities. On the other hand, IPC teams think executives don’t understand the value of their role. Clinicians feel caught in the middle while striving to achieve quality care for their patients. This is the “executive disconnect” I speak about frequently and it’s possible to resolve it with an aligned strategy, a shared language and clear expectations.
The Data Is Clear: The Problem Isn’t Knowledge. It’s Alignment.
So how do we move from merely acknowledging these signals to actually making system changes?
Across 261 respondents, it’s clear that people understand the importance of infection prevention. However, those leading these initiatives do not feel empowered to operate at a strategic level.
This year’s poll data validates what we’ve been discussing with clients and partners across the U.S. and internationally: 1) IPC teams don’t need more checklists to make an impact, 2) Executives don’t need more binders to engage and align infection prevention with strategic goals, 3) Organizations don’t always need more task-based training. They need guidance that supports system-level alignment and community impact. They need alignment, the ability to articulate their impact in high level leadership conversations, system thinking and strategic integration of infection prevention into big-picture goals.
That’s a gap we focus on solving through our IP PROPEL™ Framework by helping healthcare leaders build stronger, resilient healthcare systems through strategic infection prevention.
What This Means for 2026 and What Are We Doing About It?
This year’s poll results from 261 respondents across healthcare executive, public health decision-maker, infection prevention leader and practitioner teams tell us that there’s great optimism met with friction. It also emphasizes that leadership alignment is still limited in most healthcare systems and that there’s a great opportunity for change.
Your feedback guided the structure of our upcoming 2026 Strategic Systems Summit designed to tackle these challenges head-on. We built it upon the principles of our IP PROPEL™ Framework that is specifically designed for executives, infection prevention leaders, system-level decision-makers, and infection prevention practitioners seeking broader organizational impact. We’ll bring together leading voices in healthcare, executive leadership and infection prevention to build alignment and deliver actionable strategies that attendees can immediately apply for measurable outcomes.
If you want to be part of contributing to the next chapter for healthcare resilience with strategic infection prevention leadership, join the summit waitlist today. Early access gets you the agenda, private leadership sessions, early bird pricing and free resources.
This 2-day virtual summit will focus on turning the insights from these polls and our expertise into strategic action across five core areas:
Leadership Alignment & Executive Influence
Financial Strategy & ROI Communication
Workforce Engagement & Cultural Influence
Systems Thinking & Organizational Resilience
This summit is created as a space for intentional relationship-building and conversations for the future of infection prevention leadership and healthcare influence.
Be the First to Access Registration
Our waitlist is now open. Seats will be limited because the summit is interactive, high-touch, and designed for leaders who are ready to shape the future of infection prevention and resilience in healthcare.
Optimism is a great start but achieving leadership alignment, organizational engagement and sustainability are the real wins.
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