Hospitals across California are committed to improving the quality and safety of health care. A key challenge for hospitals is preventing and treating sepsis. A majority of patients diagnosed with this serious infection have the condition prior to coming to the hospital.
A nurse-led fast-track sepsis screening and diagnosis program cut mortality rates in half at nine California hospitals.
As a condition that almost always leads to longer length of stay and often death, severe sepsis occurs in about 750,000 U.S. patients each year, with 28 percent to 50 percent of these patients dying, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Innovations Exchange.
Sepsis, one of the most serious infections found in hospitalized patients, is a potentially life-threatening condition in which the bloodstream is overwhelmed by infection. More than 750,000 patients are diagnosed with sepsis each year.
Hospitals throughout California are making significant strides in their ongoing efforts to reduce the risk of infection for patients — an essential component of providing high-quality care and keeping patients safe during their hospital stay.
Funded by a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, UCSF’s Integrated Nurse Leadership Program recruited nine Bay Area hospitals for a two-year patient safety collaborative aimed at reducing sepsis mortality rates.
For more than 150 years, Daughters of Charity Health System (DCHS) has provided quality, compassionate and holistic care in California. The health system, with six hospitals located across the state, has made patient safety a top priority through a variety of process improvements and programs.
The 40 hospitals within Dignity Health, formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West, in 2007 launched a three-year initiative aimed at reducing inpatient severe sepsis mortality by 5 percent across all hospitals.
Sharp HealthCare treats more than 600,000 patients every year. Since 2007, a top quality care initiative has been to quickly identify and reduce a serious infection known as sepsis. Each year sepsis affects 750,000 people across the country.
When patients enter the hospital with a serious infection they want to know they’re getting the highest quality care. Kaiser Permanente is committed to quickly identifying and treating life threatening infections known as sepsis.
