Baton Rouge, La.-based Our Lady of the Lake Health has deployed a diagnostic tool capable of detecting sepsis within 10 minutes in the hopes of saving lives from what is often dubbed a "silent killer" in hospital environments — causing 1 in 3 hospital patient deaths.
The tool's use began Aug. 1, so has thus far only been operational for 24 hours a spokesperson confirmed to Becker's, and noted there will be more data in time. The hospital claims it is the first to use adopt this technology in the country.
"Until this point there hasn't been a clear diagnostic tool to determine if a patient had or could develop sepsis," Mark Laperouse, MD, the medical director of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center's Emergency Department said in an Aug. 1 statement. "With clear and early detection, we are able to get patients the appropriate treatment, at the right time."
Timing is everything when it comes to treating a patient for sepsis, so a tool that can give clinicians insight into a patient's condition within minutes could be life-saving.
"Minutes matter in this disease for our communities," Christopher Thomas, MD, the medical director of System Quality and Patient Safety at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System and Critical Care Physician at LSU Health Sciences Center stated. "If treatment is delayed due to delayed recognition, mortality can increase by as much as 8 percent per hour. This test allows us to identify the condition and provide a personalized and specific treatment plan for every patient."