The fight against sepsis, a grave medical emergency impacting over 1.7 million adults annually, has remained a priority for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) since 2017. In light of Sepsis Awareness Month, the CDC is primed to launch a fresh, tactical approach in enhancing sepsis programs and escalating the standard of patient care.
Nursing home facilities, often, lack adequate tools needed to aid enhancements in sepsis recognition and the escalation of patient care to an acute care facility. Addressing this gap, the CDC has decided to modify and repurpose its existing sepsis and infection prevention assessments. The result is an innovative Sepsis Prevention Assessment Tool, engineered to assist nursing homes in comprehending sepsis knowhow, attitudes, and practices amongst their frontline staff. When used in conjunction with expert advice from CDC’s subject matter experts, it also provides nursing homes an organized framework for identifying areas of sepsis care improvement within their facilities.
The perilous nature of sepsis is undeterred by the fact that a significant number of individuals – at least 350,000 adults – who fall victim to sepsis either lose their lives during hospitalization or are transferred to hospice care. Despite this startling fact, an alarming number of people remain ignorant about what sepsis is, how to identify it, and most importantly, how to prevent infections that could precede sepsis. Now more than ever, your role as infection prevention professionals in hospitals is vital in raising awareness about sepsis.
You are urged to educate yourselves further about the Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements and CDC’s national educational effort aptly named, ‘Get Ahead of Sepsis.’ The Deputy Director for Program Improvement in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the CDC, Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, strongly urges your participation in this national endeavor of saving lives from sepsis.