Keita Public Health Consulting, LLC

10/20/2026

💙 **Happy Infection Control Week 2026!** 💙

October 18–24, we celebrate the professionals who work tirelessly behind the scenes and at the bedside to prevent infections, protect patients, and make healthcare safer for everyone.

Infection prevention is more than a checklist or a regulatory requirement. It is a commitment to patient safety, evidence-based practice, collaboration, education, and continuous improvement.

As Infection Preventionists, we turn data into action, identify risks before they become harm, empower healthcare teams, and advocate for safer environments across our communities.

To my fellow Infection Preventionists and all our healthcare partners: **Thank you for your vigilance, leadership, and unwavering dedication.** Our work matters. Every intervention, every conversation, and every prevented infection makes a difference.

Let's continue to educate, prevent, protect, and lead the way toward safer care for all!

**Stronger together for safer care.** 💙

09/18/2026

09/18/2026

Friday evening thought for my healthcare colleagues…

As we head into another respiratory season, Pennsylvania is giving us a very real reminder of why infection prevention cannot be seasonal.

Pennsylvania has now reported 731 measles cases across 38 counties, 141 hospitalizations, and four measles-associated deaths in 2026.

Meanwhile, respiratory virus activity is beginning to shift. COVID-19 activity is increasing nationally, while flu and RSV activity remain relatively low—for now.

And that “for now” matters.

The healthcare climate is changing. Resources are stretched. Trust is challenged. Public health messaging can be confusing. Healthcare workers are tired. And patients are still counting on us to recognize risk before it becomes an outbreak.

This is our window to prepare.

Before the waiting rooms fill:
• Review your respiratory illness and isolation processes.
• Reinforce early recognition and appropriate testing.
• Make sure PPE and supplies are available.
• Revisit vaccination education and access.
• Strengthen communication between Infection Prevention, Nursing, Employee Health, Laboratory, EVS, and leadership.
• Know your local epidemiology—not just the national headlines.
• And perhaps most importantly, keep building trust with patients and staff.

Infection prevention is not simply about responding when the numbers rise.

It is about seeing what is coming, preparing the system, and reducing the opportunity for transmission before the first patient arrives.

As we enter respiratory season, let's not wait for the surge to tell us we should have prepared.

Preparedness is prevention.
Prevention is patient safety.
And patient safety is everyone's responsibility.

Have a safe and restorative weekend, healthcare colleagues. 🩺🦠

09/05/2026

If you want to lead one day, you must first learn how to follow.

Leadership isn’t about always being the person at the front of the room. It’s about understanding what it means to support, listen, collaborate, and contribute—even when you’re not the one making the decisions.

The best leaders understand the value of being a follower. They know how to learn from others, respect different perspectives, accept feedback, and work toward a shared vision.

Following teaches you humility.
Following teaches you patience.
Following teaches you how your decisions impact others.

And perhaps most importantly, following teaches you what kind of leader you want to become.

Before you ask people to follow you, make sure you’ve learned how to follow with purpose.

As we celebrate Labor Day, let’s recognize the value of every person who shows up, contributes, serves, builds, teaches, cares, and makes a difference—whether they are leading from the front or supporting from behind the scenes.

Leadership is not a position. It is a journey—and sometimes the path to the front starts from the back.

Happy Labor Day! 🇺🇸

09/02/2026

When health inequity becomes someone else’s problem, we all become more vulnerable.

The recent NPR report about hundreds of children in Pakistan acquiring HIV through unsafe healthcare practices is heartbreaking—and deeply concerning. These are children who sought care for common illnesses and instead left with a lifelong infection. Investigations have pointed to unsafe injection practices, inadequate oversight, limited resources, and systemic weaknesses in healthcare delivery.

But I believe we need to look beyond the individual tragedy.

This is a health equity issue.

Poverty, limited access to quality healthcare, inadequate education and training, weak surveillance systems, insufficient resources, and gaps in infection prevention do not exist in isolation. They create environments where preventable harm can flourish.

And while the rest of the world watches from the sidelines, we continue to draw imaginary boundaries around these problems:

“That's their healthcare system.”
“That's their country.”
“That's their problem.”

It isn't.

The global boundaries are closing.

The same lesson applies to Ebola, measles, emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and other public health threats around the world. Disease does not recognize borders, passports, socioeconomic status, or political boundaries.

What happens in one community can eventually affect another.

As healthcare professionals, public health leaders, and global citizens, we have to move beyond reacting to tragedies after they occur. We must invest in prevention, infection prevention and control, workforce education, safe injection practices, surveillance, laboratory capacity, access to treatment, and resilient health systems.

Health equity cannot mean that people simply have access to healthcare.

It must mean they have access to SAFE, quality healthcare.

Because a child should never enter a hospital seeking treatment for a fever and leave with a preventable lifelong infection.

And we should not wait until an outbreak reaches our doorstep before deciding that it matters.

Global health is local health.
Their health is our health.
Their problem can become our problem.

The question is: Will we act before it does?



An avoidable tragedy: Hundreds of children infected with HIV : NPR

For years, Pakistan has seen cases of children infected with HIV due to unsafe treatment in clinics and hospitals. A current outbreak numbers hundreds of cases. Why does this problem keep occurring?

08/26/2026

💉🎶 When Dolly Parton made vaccine awareness a little more country! 😂❤️

In 2021, helped fund early COVID-19 vaccine research through her $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center—and later, when she received her Moderna vaccine, she gave us a moment only Dolly could deliver.

Instead of just rolling up her sleeve, Dolly broke into her own classic song… “Jolene” became “Vaccine.” 😂💉🎶

🎵 Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine… 🎵

But behind the humor was a serious message: vaccines save lives, research matters, and public trust matters.

Dolly used her voice, her influence, and her generosity to bring attention to something that could otherwise feel complicated or intimidating. She reminded us that public health awareness doesn’t always have to be a lecture—it can sometimes come with a little music, humor, and humanity. ❤️

As someone who believes strongly in public health and prevention, I love this moment because it shows the power of using your platform to educate, encourage, and inspire.

Thank you, Dolly, for reminding us that sometimes the best way to get people to listen… is to sing about it! 🎶💉

Country music legend Dolly Parton briefly changed the words of her ...

08/19/2026

Building Safety From the Ground Up 🦺🏥

There’s a unique moment in healthcare construction when the worlds of nursing, infection prevention, and engineering intersect—when an RN steps onto a construction site wearing a hard hat.

That’s where Infection Prevention leadership becomes more than policy—it becomes prevention in action.

Healthcare construction carries significant risks if infection prevention measures are not identified and mitigated early: airborne contamination, dust migration, waterborne pathogens, HVAC imbalance, improper pressure relationships, and inadequate commissioning.

The consequences can extend far beyond the construction site—potential healthcare-associated infections, environmental exposures, regulatory findings, delayed openings, and costly rework.

Effective IP leadership requires more than knowing the standards. It requires understanding how to apply them in the real world. That means being fluent in FGI, ASHRAE, CDC, OSHA, and applicable state requirements—and knowing how those standards translate into design, construction, commissioning, and ultimately patient safety.

Partnership with Facilities Engineering is critical. Together, we assess risk, validate airflow and pressure relationships, evaluate containment, review water systems, and ensure infection prevention principles are embedded throughout the project—not addressed after the fact.

Because healthcare construction isn’t simply about bricks, beams, and blueprints.

It’s about building environments where patients and staff can be safe from day one.

As IP leaders, our responsibility is to make sure safety isn’t an afterthought.

It belongs in the blueprint.

08/11/2026

Are we willing to trade decades of public health progress for short-term policy decisions?

The recent executive order calling for significant changes to the childhood vaccine schedule—including recommendations affecting hepatitis B vaccination in infants—is deeply concerning.

We cannot ignore what is happening with measles. The U.S. has reported more than 2,400 confirmed measles cases in 2026, reminding us what happens when vaccination coverage declines.

And now we risk stepping backward on hepatitis B prevention.

The infant hepatitis B birth dose represents decades of research and public health experience aimed at preventing chronic infection, cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer later in life.

The consequences of today's decisions may not be seen today. They may emerge 10, 20, or 30 years from now.

Prevention is easy to overlook when it works.

But infectious diseases don't care about politics. They exploit gaps in protection.

As healthcare professionals, researchers, nurses, infection preventionists, and public health advocates, we must continue to ask:

Are these decisions grounded in evidence? And what will they mean for the health of future generations?

We cannot wait for preventable disease to return before we remember why prevention mattered.

Protect the science. Protect the progress. Protect our children.