The Friday Five – September is Sepsis Awareness Month

Follow and join the conversation with #SepsisAwarenessMonth

Every 2 minutes someone dies from sepsis in the U.S. Any kind of infection can lead to sepsis. Quick diagnosis and treatment can mean the difference between life and death. September is Sepsis Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about an illness that claims more lives each year than breast cancer, prostate cancer and AIDS combined. For our Friday Five this week, HealthcareNOW Radio reached out to Ginny Kwong, M.D., Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer for Halifax Health, to share some information about sepsis and discuss Halifax’s innovative approach to leveraging new technology in the race against sepsis.

Not many days left in #SAM2017 but #sepsis victim counter keeps moving up to the 1.5 million mark since Sept. 1
count Sept 27 at 2:20 pm EDT pic.twitter.com/BIH80VC8NB

— Sepsis Alliance (@SepsisAlliance) September 27, 2017

Five Things Learned During Sepsis Awareness Month

By Ginny Kwong, M.D., Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer for Halifax Health

• The likelihood of death from sepsis increases by 8 percent for each hour that passes without treatment with antibiotics.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 1.5 million people in the U. S. develop sepsis each year. About 250,000 Americans die from sepsis yearly. One in three patients who die in a hospital have sepsis.

• Patient and caregiver education on symptom recognition of early infection and future prevention efforts is an important part of care transitions during hospitalization to promote patient engagement on sepsis awareness. Good resources for clinicians are the sepsis section on Lippincott Nursing Center and Sepsis Alliance’s medical professionals page.

• The Advisory Board reports that sepsis volume has more than doubled and inpatient mortality rates increased by 20% in the past decade. At 48%, sepsis is also the inpatient service with the highest growth projection from 2020-2025.

• Halifax Health’s own approach to improving sepsis outcomes began with an internal campaign that succeeded in reducing mortality by 33 percent. These initiatives led to implementation of a clinical intelligence platform (POC Advisor from Wolters Kluwer) that integrates with our EHR and Vocera communication system to enhance adoption by our clinical teams, and to maximize the value of the technology investments.

ICYMI – Our other Friday Fives.