Her patient was ready to go home when he suddenly spiked a fever, recalls Nancy
Dupree, R.N., a perioperative nurse at Sutter Health-affiliated Eden Medical Center
in Castro Valley.
His sudden rise in temperature concerned Dupree, because
she knew it was a potential warning sign for the deadly blood infection sepsis. Dupree
screened the patient, who tested positive for sepsis, and she immediately provided
lifesaving medication.
Just hours before her patient’s emergency,
Dupree had completed a new Sutter Health training on the signs of sepsis—a potentially
deadly complication from an infection.
“The first six hours really
matter,” says Sean Townsend, M.D., physician lead for the Sutter Health sepsis
initiative. "Without timely intervention, the patient can go into septic shock and
die."
Starting in 2014, Sutter Health developed a standardized program
to more rapidly identify and treat sepsis, the No. 1 killer of hospitalized patients
in the United States. As a result of our systemwide initiative, we’ve reduced
deaths from sepsis and septic shock by 33 percent across our affiliate sites. That
translates into more than 500 lives saved.
Our work to standardize care
delivery, provide care based on the latest evidence-based practices, improve documentation,
decrease mortality and improve education for clinical teams has improved medical outcomes
and quality of life for patients across the Sutter Health network.