Welcome to SvPrevention – your source for infection prevention and biopreparedness consulting. Hospitals and healthcare facilities are the frontline for early identification, isolation, reporting, and treatment of infectious patients. Infection prevention efforts extend beyond healthcare and into the private sector, but private businesses often don’t have the infection prevention resources they need to respond to biological threats, such as re-opening following COVID-19 closures. Infection prevention programs act as sentinels for underlying and novel infectious disease threats within healthcare. Created by infection preventionist and epidemiologist Dr. Saskia Popescu, it is the result of years noticing gaps within the infection prevention and health security world.

What we offer: From creating infectious disease response plans to helping guide efforts to re-open following the COVID-19 pandemic, SvPrevention is a resource for the healthcare, private businesses, public health, and the biodefense community. We translate national and state re-opening requirements into practice and application so your business can reopen safely and following best practice. For hospitals, we develop plans and response mechanisms to enhance your biopreparedness for biological events, whether it be Ebola, pandemic flu, or outbreaks of novel diseases. SvPrevention works to enhance capabilities through consulting on infection prevention, hospital infectious disease preparedness, and health security measures – from re-opening businesses following COVID-19 restrictions to healthcare biopreparedness. My goal is to help hospitals, public health, the public sector, and national biodefense efforts through enhancing the healthcare sector and providing more accurate information regarding infectious diseases.

SASKIA POPESCU, PhD, MPH, MA, CIC

Dr. Popescu is an infectious disease epidemiologist and infection preventionist with a focus on hospital biopreparedness and the role of infection prevention in health security efforts. She is an expert in healthcare biopreparedness  and is nationally recognized for her work in infection prevention and enhancing hospital response to infectious diseases events.

She holds a PhD in Biodefense from George Mason University, a Masters in Public Health with a focus on infectious diseases, and a Masters of Arts in International Security Studies, from the University of Arizona. Saskia is an Alumni Fellow of the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security. She is also an external expert for the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), and a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship at George Mason University. In 2010, she was a recipient of the Frontier Interdisciplinary eXperience (FIX) HS-STEM Career Development Grant in Food Defense through the National Center for Food Protection and Defense. During her work as an infection preventionist, she managed Ebola response, a 300+ measles exposure resulting in an MMWR article, and bioterrorism preparedness in the hospital system. More recently, she created and disseminated a gap analysis for a 6-hospital system to establish vulnerabilities for high-consequence diseases, helping to guide the creation of a high-consequence disease initiative to enhance readiness at the healthcare level. Her assessment and leadership regarding healthcare biopreparedness efforts has resulted in several peer-reviewed literature. She is certified in infection prevention (CIC), hospital preparedness through FEMA’s NIMS, and pandemic preparedness from the DHS Center for Domestic Preparedness. Dr. Popescu’s research has focused on roadblocks for non-state actor utilization of bioweapons, antimicrobial resistance, US healthcare vulnerability to infectious disease outbreaks and surveillance. Her research on food security was awarded a Department of Homeland Security Career Development Grant, and her dissertation research investigates the cultural, economic, and political drivers for infection prevention utilization in the US and applies a political economy lens to address market failures that ultimately translate to poor infection control practices and how that affects American health security. 

Education:

• PhD, Biodefense – George Mason University- Schar School of Policy and Government (2015-2019). Presidential Scholar and Global Health Security Agenda Student Ambassador. Dissertation: How Cost Containment Undermines Disease Containment: Political and Economic Obstacles to Investing in Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) 
• MA, International Security Studies – University of Arizona, (2012-2013). Thesis: Capabilities Analysis of Bioterrorism: Roadblocks Facing Non-state Actors’ Use of Bioweapons.
• MPH, Epidemiology – University of Arizona, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health (2009-2011). Thesis: Food System Vulnerability and Defense: Modeling the Public Health System to Recognize and Respond to Intentional Food Contamination. 
• BA, Classics (Roman history) – University of Arizona (2005-2008). Senior capstone: Impact of Disease on the Fall of the Roman Empire.

What we offer:

Consulting on biopreparedness and infection prevention in the healthcare and non-hospital settings – both in terms of daily infection prevention and control duties, but also infectious disease preparedness. SvPrevention provides gap analyses, risk assessments, and plans to enhance healthcare biopreparedness for infectious disease threats and private business response to biological incidents, such as COVID-19 and efforts to re-open following quarantine and restrictions.

Please see the Publications and Research pages for more information and guidance on specifics regarding the range of topics I provide guidance on.