North Shore-LIJ Health System and Institute for Healthcare Improvement Announce Partnership to Reduce Sepsis Mortality

Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 11, 2011—The North Shore-LIJ Health System (North Shore-LIJ) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) announced a new strategic partnership that will demonstrate key improvements in hospital quality and enable the two organizations to test new ways to prevent sepsis and manage its most harmful effects through earlier recognition.

The 21-month partnership, which will also focus on improving end-of-life care, will draw upon the unique strengths of each organization. IHI has substantial experience with innovation, prototype testing and spreading improvement practices around the world. North Shore LIJ takes a lead role in quality in the region, and North Shore-LIJ’s Feinstein Institute of Medical Research is recognized as a leader in sepsis research, among other diseases.

Sepsis is a toxic and life-threatening medical condition caused by the body’s overwhelming response to an infection or injury. Researchers estimate that about 200,000 of the 750,000 people in the United States affected each year by sepsis die from the complications – more than the death toll of prostate cancer, breast cancer and AIDS combined. Twenty-five percent of all hospital deaths in the United States are caused by sepsis; worldwide, the disease causes some 1,400 deaths each day. Despite all this, sepsis is not widely known or understood by the general population. A 2010 poll commissioned by the Feinstein Institute, which held an international symposium on sepsis last fall, found that 60 percent of American adults are not familiar with the disease.

As the largest integrated healthcare provider in the New York metropolitan area, with 15 hospitals and 200 outpatient facilities, North Shore LIJ is teaming with IHI to develop better prevention, diagnostic and treatment processes that can be introduced in a select set of North Shore-LIJ hospitals and other facilities throughout the US. Together, North Shore-LIJ and IHI will then design a strategy and timeline that, in partnership with other healthcare providers, will spread this framework worldwide.

“North Shore-LIJ is an esteemed leader in the field of sepsis research, and we’re excited to supplement and augment their efforts around this dangerous and sometimes elusive disease,” said Maureen Bisognano, president and CEO of IHI. “With this partnership, we can join IHI’s clinical and service innovation talents with North Shore-LIJ to produce dramatically better performance. By assessing new ways to prevent and manage sepsis, we think we can have a significant impact on the number of deaths that it causes.”

“Sepsis is one of the most vexing problems facing hospitals,” said Michael J. Dowling, president and CEO of North Shore-LIJ, noting that the disease is the leading cause of death within the health system. “Considering that there are 750,000 new sepsis cases every year, the fact that this issue has gone under the radar for so long is unsettling.

We need to talk about sepsis openly, educate our clinicians and the public and devote as many resources as we can muster to fix it. Having IHI as a partner in this campaign will both help increase awareness of the problem among consumers and enhance our ability to educate clinicians on how to prevent, diagnose and treat it.”

In addition to focusing on the prevention, early recognition and management of sepsis, North Shore-LIJ and IHI will work together to redesign and spread a framework for the improvement of end-of-life care delivery, with a particular focus on greater support for and engagement with family caregivers. The partnership between the two organizations will also enable North Shore-LIJ to develop greater improvement advisor capability and to identify and propose expert faculty for IHI programs and initiatives. One additional dimension to the collaboration will unfold with the opening of Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine in August. The first class of medical students will have access to online improvement courses that have been developed by the IHI Open School for Health Professions, an interprofessional educational community. The students will also launch an IHI Open School chapter at the new medical school.

About North Shore-LIJ Health System

The nation’s second-largest, non-profit, secular healthcare system, North Shore-LIJ delivers world-class clinical care throughout the New York metropolitan area, pioneering research at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and a visionary approach to medical education, highlighted by the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. The winner of the National Quality Forum’s 2010 National Quality Healthcare Award, North Shore-LIJ cares for people at every stage of life at 15 hospitals, including nationally renowned children’s and psychiatric hospitals, long-term care facilities and more than 200 ambulatory care centers throughout the region. As an integrated, academic health system, North Shore-LIJ’s 110 residency and fellowship programs serve as a training ground for more than 1,200 future physicians, many of whom hone their skills at North Shore-LIJ’s Patient Safety Institute – the nation’s largest patient simulation center. As evidence of its commitment to community health and patient-focused research, Feinstein Institute scientists and North Shore-LIJ physicians enroll more than 1,200 people every year in clinical research studies. North Shore-LIJ’s owned hospitals and long-term care facilities house about 5,600 beds, employ more than 10,000 nurses and have affiliations with more than 9,000 physicians. Its workforce of about 43,000 is the largest on Long Island and the ninth-largest in New York City. For more information, go to www.northshorelij.com.

About IHI
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (www.IHI.org) is an independent not-for-profit organization that works with health care providers and leaders throughout the world to achieve safe and effective health care. IHI focuses on motivating and building the will for change, identifying and testing new models of care in partnership with both patients and health care professionals, and ensuring the broadest possible adoption of best practices and effective innovations. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, IHI mobilizes teams, organizations, and increasingly nations, through its staff of more than 100 people and partnerships with hundreds of faculty around the world.