Surveillance, extra training cut hospital's sepsis deaths

A Huntsville, Alabama, hospital cut sepsis mortality more than 50 percent with electronic surveillance and a staff education initiative, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Huntsville Hospital trained staff in both use of the electronic system and in nursing protocols it developed. The system monitored such measures as medications, vital signs and lab values. The protocols and surveillance cut sepsis-related deaths 53 percent while reducing 30-day readmission rates from 19.08 percent to 13.21 percent, although its effect on length of stay was negligible. Read the full article at FierceHealthIT