CDC Launches Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements to Help Sepsis Patients

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By Brian Ward

On August 24, the CDC launched the Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements, with seven core elements aimed at strengthening survival and recovery rates for all sepsis patients. Hospitalized patients with sepsis have a high mortality rate, as the infection acts rapidly and can be hard to distinguish from other medical conditions. According to the CDC, at least 1.7 million adults in America develop sepsis and at least 350,000 adults who develop sepsis die during their hospitalization or are moved into hospice care.

“Sepsis is taking too many lives. One in three people who dies in a hospital has sepsis during that hospitalization. Rapid diagnosis and immediate appropriate treatment, including antibiotics, are essential to saving lives, yet the challenges of awareness about and recognition of sepsis are enormous. That’s why CDC is calling on all U.S. hospitals to have a sepsis program and raise the bar on sepsis care by incorporating these seven core elements,” said CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, in a press statement. “Seven elements provide an organizational framework and key concepts that guide hospitals as they work to improve early recognition and treatment to save lives.”

The seven sepsis care elements are:

  1. Leadership Commitment: Dedicating the necessary human, financial, and information technology resources.
  2. Accountability: Appointing a leader responsible for program outcomes and setting concrete program goals.
  3. Multi-professional expertise: Engaging key partners throughout the organization.
  4. Action: Implementing structures and processes to improve the identification of, management of, and recovery from sepsis.
  5. Tracking: Measuring sepsis epidemiology, outcomes, progress toward program goals, and the impact of sepsis initiatives.
  6. Reporting: Providing usable information on sepsis treatment and outcomes to relevant partners.
  7. Education: Providing sepsis education to healthcare professionals during onboarding and annually.

“CDC’s Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements are a guide for structuring sepsis programs that put your healthcare providers in the best position to rapidly identify and provide effective care for all types of patients with sepsis,” Raymund Dantes, MD, MPH, CDC medical advisor said in a press statement. “The seven elements complement clinical guidelines by describing the leadership, expertise, tracking, education, and other elements that can be implemented in a wide variety of hospitals to improve the quality of sepsis care.”

Learn more about the sepsis core elements here: https://www.cdc.gov/sepsis/core-elements.html