Every year 750,000 people are diagnosed with sepsis in the United States and approximately 258,000 of them die (Dumont, Francis-Frank, Chong, & Balaan, 2016). The sepsis mortality rate is approximately 40 percent (Dumont et al., 2016). In 2011 sepsis cost hospitals an estimated $20.3 billion (Torio & Andrews, 2013). Sepsis increases the length of hospital stay, costs, and morality.
Purpose of New Sepsis Screen Tools Implementation
In December 2015 Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced hospitals would be penalized one percent of reimbursements if they have high rates of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) (Stone, 2015). HAIs have a high risk of sepsis, especially those with weak immune systems. Early diagnosis and treatment …show more content…
This will include education and implementation of the two screening tools for sepsis. The education will be implemented by the development of an eCourse that will be mandatory for all medical acute and critical care nurses to complete as well as a Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (SBAR) on the new tools that will be sent to every unit system-wide.
The implementation of qSOFA and SOFA screening will provide nurses a resource to helpl to help detect early signs of sepsis in medical acute and critical care settings. Research and evidenced-based practice has shown SOFA and qSOFA assist quickly identifying early signs of sepsis. Singer et al. (2016) published a recent study and literature review, which demonstrates the benefit of the SOFA and qSOFA tool over the use of the SIRS criteria. When the SIRS criteria was utilized to screen for septic intensive care unit (ICU) patients, only 64% were correctly identified versus the 74% identified using the SOFA tool. In non-ICU patients SIRS detected 76% of septic patients while qSOFA, a ‘quick’ version of SOFA, was 81% successful. These screening tools will not only help improve early detection of septic patients but they will also lead to earlier intervention. Early detection of sepsis will decrease length of stay, hospital costs, and mortality (Singer et …show more content…
Early detection is critical to decrease hospital stays and the mortality rate of septic patients. This greatly reduces unreimbursed care currently being provided due to treatment of HAIs in patients that could lead to sepsis. Upon approval from the sepsis committee chairman to implement the new screening tools, it is also recommended to install these tools into the new electronic medical record Epic, currently being built. In the future this tool included in the EMR will continuously analyze data from patients and send alerts to notify providers of suspected sepsis cases, allowing for a thorough review and enables automatic tracking and reporting of septic cases (Savino, 2016; Kurczewski, Sweet, McKnight, & Halbritter,
Purpose of New Sepsis Screen Tools Implementation
In December 2015 Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced hospitals would be penalized one percent of reimbursements if they have high rates of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) (Stone, 2015). HAIs have a high risk of sepsis, especially those with weak immune systems. Early diagnosis and treatment …show more content…
This will include education and implementation of the two screening tools for sepsis. The education will be implemented by the development of an eCourse that will be mandatory for all medical acute and critical care nurses to complete as well as a Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (SBAR) on the new tools that will be sent to every unit system-wide.
The implementation of qSOFA and SOFA screening will provide nurses a resource to helpl to help detect early signs of sepsis in medical acute and critical care settings. Research and evidenced-based practice has shown SOFA and qSOFA assist quickly identifying early signs of sepsis. Singer et al. (2016) published a recent study and literature review, which demonstrates the benefit of the SOFA and qSOFA tool over the use of the SIRS criteria. When the SIRS criteria was utilized to screen for septic intensive care unit (ICU) patients, only 64% were correctly identified versus the 74% identified using the SOFA tool. In non-ICU patients SIRS detected 76% of septic patients while qSOFA, a ‘quick’ version of SOFA, was 81% successful. These screening tools will not only help improve early detection of septic patients but they will also lead to earlier intervention. Early detection of sepsis will decrease length of stay, hospital costs, and mortality (Singer et …show more content…
Early detection is critical to decrease hospital stays and the mortality rate of septic patients. This greatly reduces unreimbursed care currently being provided due to treatment of HAIs in patients that could lead to sepsis. Upon approval from the sepsis committee chairman to implement the new screening tools, it is also recommended to install these tools into the new electronic medical record Epic, currently being built. In the future this tool included in the EMR will continuously analyze data from patients and send alerts to notify providers of suspected sepsis cases, allowing for a thorough review and enables automatic tracking and reporting of septic cases (Savino, 2016; Kurczewski, Sweet, McKnight, & Halbritter,