Announcing The Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair, an Innovative Education Experience for EVS personnel and Affiliated Healthcare Stakeholders
If you’re attending the 2026 AHE Exchange in New Orleans (NOLA), we invite you to attend this innovative competency-driven skills fair open to environmental services and infection preventionists who want to elevate their knowledge and practice.
The learning continues online after the Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair!
Earn continuing education units by taking the self-paced, online-based educational modules on the EvSOP website in late August. These lessons expand on the science and standards attendees learned during the skills fair in NOLA.
Short, Sweet, Teach and Repeat 2.0: Leveling Up the EVS Skills Fair with Gamified Precision
August 18, 2026, 3:30-5:30 p.m., Hyatt Regency New Orleans, Strand 10
Using the Short, Sweet, Teach and Repeat teaching methodology, this break-out session at AHE introduces gamified stations on cart set-up, invisible contaminant detection, wiping and mopping precision, and strict IFU compliance for mattress cleaning and inspection as an example. Walk away with templates, leaderboards, and proven strategies to turn mandatory training into a high-energy competition that drives lasting behavior change. Perfect for intermediate-to-advanced EVS leaders ready to exceed accreditation expectations and ingrain the AHE core competencies for lasting effectiveness.
Test Your Skills
The Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair is a structured environment for testing your environmental hygiene-related practices.
Learn from the best
The Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair is facilitated by best-in-class experts from the EVS and IPC worlds.
Ongoing Learning
The Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair is just the first step in a more comprehensive education and training program.
Explore the Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair
In the Hand-On Hygiene Skills Fair™, participants rotate through the timed stations, each built around the tools and tasks of the job, using real EVS carts, real chemistries, and real floors. Expert facilitators instruct and guide participants through the correct principles and practices, and learners leave the event having done the work, not just watched it.
a comprehensive education and skills competency testing program
The in-person event, coupled with online-based and self-paced
continuing education modules for a deeper dive into the science and standards, form a comprehensive program helping participants understand the science-forward principles and then apply them to demonstrating competency on the floor.
Nine Stations. Real Equipment. Every participant working.
The Hand-On Hygiene Skills Fair™, developed by the Environmental Services Optimization Project (EvSOP), delivers science-driven, evidence-based principles and practices for healthcare-based environmental services personnel and affiliated healthcare stakeholders such as infection preventionists (IPs).
This concept incorporates dynamic classroom learning, networking and interactive, hands-on engagement through stations of a skills fair that walk participants through all aspects of applied microbiology, transmission control, infection prevention, cleaning and disinfection practices, quality assurance plus validation and much more.
The in-person, on-site event is supplemented by self-paced, online modules that expand on the science and standards explored in the skills fair. After
participants learn the “how” at the skills fair, they can take a deeper dive into the “why” through these engaging, interactive lessons.
A capstone project ensures that participants thoroughly digest and apply what they have learned to demonstrate real competencies. These projects are proctored by experts with decades of experience in environmental services, infection
prevention, microbiology, and other sectors.
The Hands-On Hygiene Skills Fair by the Numbers
Check out the impact of this unique learning experience:
9
learning stations
20+
expert facilitators
1.5
hours of learning
1
chance to participate
access the continuing education lessons associated with the hands-on hygiene skills fair.
These self-paced, online-based lessons offer a deeper dive into the science and standards that you learned at the skills fair held at the AHE annual meeting.
COMING SOON!
