Photo credit: Ohio Hospital Association
Sepsis is one of the costliest and deadliest hospital-acquired conditions, and a new initiative from the Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) aims to reduce such infections by 30 percent through early identification.
The OHA’s “SOS” (Signs of Sepsis) program seeks to better educate patients on the symptoms of the infection, which killed 7,478 Ohioans in 2015 and costs the state more than $1 billion a year, with an average cost of more than $100,000 per incidence. Early-recognition efforts by OHA’s 91 member hospitals have already cut sepsis deaths by 9 percent in 10 months, preventing more than 670 deaths. The initiative features a video, a web graphic and a fact sheet, and offers a six-symptom acrostic for patients to keep in mind:
- Shivering, fever or extreme cold
- Extreme pain
- Pale/discolored skin
- Sleepinees
- “I feel light I might die”
- Shortness of breath
"OHA is continuing a strong legacy of collaboration to improve health care in Ohio,” OHA president and CEO Mike Abrams said in the statement. "We are eager to work with community organizations to promote SOS...to drive early detection and early intervention to improve the outcomes for tens of thousands of Ohioans."
The initiative closely follows recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released in August, which emphasized the necessity of early-detection protocols, FierceHealthcare previously reported.