During the month of September, a national campaign was created to bring increased attention to sepsis, the leading cause of death and the most expensive in-hospital condition to treat in the United States. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC), a joint collaboration of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, is committed to reducing mortality from severe sepsis and septic shock worldwide by 25 percent in five years. This was achieved by building awareness of sepsis, improving diagnosis, increasing the use of appropriate treatment, educating healthcare professionals, improving post-operative ICU care, developing guidelines of care and implementing a performance improvement program.
In 2014, the SSC launched a new quality improvement initiative called the SSC Collaborative. This effort was made possible through a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. This initiative’s goal is to increase early recognition and treatment of sepsis in patients on hospital medical, surgical and telemetry units. The aim of the new initiative is to study, test and disseminate tools related to the early identification and treatment of sepsis on hospital floors. Cooper chose to participate in this lifesaving campaign. The Cooper pilot unit is Kelemen North 10.
Danielle Majuri, RN-BC, MSN, APRN, Clinical Educator, and Jean-Sebastian Rachion, MD, Attending Hospitalist, are the project owners. Other members of the multidisciplinary team are Melinda Rosseland, RN, Medical Informatics Analyst; Christa Schorr, RN, Director of Critical Care Medicine Clinical Trials; Pam Crabtree, RN, PI Outcomes Manager; Richard P. Dellinger, MD, Chief and Chair of the Department of Medicine and Medical Director of the Adult Health Institute; and Dan Fabius, DO, Attending Hospitalist. A multidisciplinary team was formed and developed an automated screening process for EPIC North 10 patients, who are now silently screened in EPIC, 24 hours a day, for sepsis criteria. If a patient meets criteria, an alert fires for the RN, allowing for further evaluation. The pilot started July 1, 2014 and has been extremely successful to date in improving early recognition and treatment for patients who are developing sepsis. This process, once perfected, will be implemented in all medical surgical units.
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