The San Francisco Chapter of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) agreed to focus on optimization of EVS programs as the annual project in 2016. The project objective was to support reliable design (standardization of evidence-based practices) for environmental cleaning and disinfection in local hospitals to reduce the risk of HAI (healthcare associated infection). The approach taken was to identify 10 key elements of a successful EVS program and build an improvement project around those. The elements were drawn from evidence-based materials provided by the Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Two hospitals volunteered to participate in the project, and Contec was identified as the sponsor. The project plan and timeline were guided by a self-assessment performed by the EVS Manager at each of two local hospitals. The project concluded with creation of a Playbook to enable replication of the project by APIC chapters and/or individual hospitals or hospital systems.