Sylvia Garcia-Houchins, MBA, RN, CIC

Sylvia Garcia-Houchins has over 35 years of experience in infection control and regulatory compliance in the healthcare industry, as well as eight years of clinical microbiology experience. Sylvia has provided infection prevention and control, regulatory compliance, accreditation readiness, and performance improvement consultation, assessment, and education in a variety of health care settings including hospitals, health clinics, ambulatory surgery, and dialysis centers both domestically and internationally. 

Sylvia has assisted organizations in policy writing, infection control plans, and development of plans of correction for CMS and state related finding. She has assisted organizations placed in Immediate Jeopardy (IJ) and immediate threat to health and safety (ITHS) status.

She served as a test writer and reviewer for the Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology and has also authored numerous articles and book chapters related to infection control including a chapter in the APIC Text and the Cleaning, Disinfection, and Sterilization Chapter in The APIC/JCR Infection Prevention and Control Workbook, Fourth Edition. Most recently she was co-author of the SHEA Compendium Strategies to Prevent Surgical Site Infections and Implementing Strategies to Prevent Infections in Acute-Care Settings as well as an editor and writer for The Joint Commission Guide to Reprocessing Reusable Medical Devices.

Sylvia’s previous positions include Director, Infection Prevention and Control, and Nurse Surveyor for The Joint Commission where she was responsible for the oversight and interpretation of infection prevention and control, training and education of surveyors and customers, surveying for standards compliance, and dissemination of survey related information to customers.

Sylvia earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, a Master’s of Business Administration from the Keller Graduate School of Management, and her nursing degree from Truman College.