Sylvia Garcia-Houchins, MBA, RN, CIC
Director, Infection Prevention and Control
Sylvia Garcia-Houchins is the Director, Infection Prevention and Control and an Ambulatory Care
Surveyor. In these roles, she is responsible for the oversight of infection prevention and control for The
Joint Commission and surveying the standards in the Comprehensive Accreditation Manual/Accreditation
Manual for Ambulatory Care.
Ms. Garcia-Houchins has over 30 years of experience in infection control, as well as eight years of
clinical microbiology experience. Most recently, she served as the Director, Infection Control at
University of Chicago Medicine and was also an intermittent consultant for Joint Commission Resources
for 10 years. Ms. Garcia-Houchins has provided infection prevention and control consultation,
assessment, and education in a variety of health care settings including hospitals, health clinics,
ambulatory surgery, and dialysis centers both domestically and internationally. Her specialty areas of
interest include disinfection and sterilization, dialysis, infection prevention during renovation and
construction, and control of Legionella and other waterborne pathogens. One of the highlights of her
career has been training health care professionals in Saudi Arabia as Infection Preventionists. 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, 4th Edition.
Ms. Garcia-Houchins earned a 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.