Maywood, Ill.-based Loyola Medicine and Loyola University Chicago were able to save patients lives, reduce hospital stays and slash costs through the adoption of its sepsis care quality improvement program.
The sepsis care program featured education about the CMS guidelines, a sepsis early warning system in the EHR, hiring of a sepsis coordinator, real-time physician feedback and built-in EHR features designed to improve adherence guidelines.
To test the program's success, Loyola Medicine analyzed the records of 13,877 adult patients with suspected infections. Researchers compared outcomes of patients treated before and after the sepsis care program was implement.
Of the patients treated after the care program began, the in-hospital death rate was 30 percent lower and time to discharge from the hospital was 25 percent faster. Additionally, the program was associated with a savings of $272,645 for patients with suspected infections.
The study was published in Critical Care Medicine.