As I wrote in a blog post on May 3, we were honored that Sallie Arnett, CIO of Licking Memorial Health Systems, shared her hospital’s sepsis success in a live webinar which we held on May 17. If you didn’t have the opportunity to attend, here’s a link so that you can watch it on demand. And here’s an updated version of what I posted on May 3:
Some of you know my sepsis story and why I spend time working with nursing informatics teams to improve sepsis identification and management with software solutions. Last weekend in Grantsville, Maryland, I had the opportunity to retell my story at the Cinderblocks event. While Cinderblocks will probably never rival HIMSS in terms of the number of attendees, the Cinderblocks gathering is no less important. It was an amazing time of storytelling and planning for the better days of an open healthcare system that actually works for patients and family members. I came away from the gathering inspired and humbled by the patient advocates, activists, and agitators in attendance. I reconnected with old friends and made new ones.
Those of us in the healthcare industry understand how potentially devastating sepsis can be. In fact, it’s the number one cause of death in U.S. hospitals. But not all of us know that these deaths are preventable 80% of the time — a truth that has been borne out in some amazing clinical successes.
Anyone involved in patient care knows how serious sepsis can be. It affects some 1.5 million patients a year and is the number one cause of 30-day unplanned hospital readmissions.1,2 Far less apparent is the impact of Severe Sepsis/Septic Shock (SEP-1) performance measure compliance on preventing these costly and potentially life-threatening return visits. Less obvious, that is, until now.
Some of you may recall attending the recent CMS educational webinar held at the end of February 2018 during which they reviewed the 5.3A Protocol. But with all the new information being presented it was easy to overlook a very important point — one that could have a huge impact on patient health, the reputation of hospitals, as well as individuals charged with sepsis management.
CMS has announced that, starting in July of this year, SEP-1 overall hospital performance will be publicly reported beginning with the July 2018 Hospital Compare release.
When sepsis sets in, minutes count before shock and even death become a real possibility. But now there’s an innovative solution to help healthcare organizations detect signs of sepsis early and prevent potentially devastating complications.
Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency, and the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals. It can escalate very quickly — patient mortality increases by 8% every hour treatment is delayed1. We're hosting a webinar to show how your hospital can detect and treat sepsis early, and save patient lives. You can register here.
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