HIGHLIGHTS AND RECOGNITION
The implementation of CODE Sepsis and the reduction of sepsis
mortality within UAB Hospital was the main quality initiative for the
UAB Care team during fiscal year 2017. Anisa Xhaja, manager of
quality improvement, and Meredith Palmer, RN, Quality Improvement,
facilitated the development and initial implementation of a robust CODE
Sepsis process across UAB Hospital. Their work was accepted for
presentation at the annual 2017 Vizient Clinical Connections Summit
in Denver, Colo., which comprised over 100 academic medical centers
and 200 community health systems. Representing the only team from
UAB Medicine accepted at this year’s conference, they presented the
CODE Sepsis design and implementation process as part of a panel
discussion titled, “Multidisciplinary approaches to successfully beating
sepsis,” which will be published as a supplement to the American
Journal of Medical Quality. Among the panel participants, UAB Hospital
was highlighted for successfully implementing a hospital-wide process
in a large, complex organization in just three months. To date, the
UAB Care-facilitated work to improve sepsis-related outcomes has
resulted in the lowest observed-to-expected sepsis mortality index
the hospital has ever achieved in a single month (0.92 in August 2017).
Since implementing CODE Sepsis in October 2016, the hospital has
experienced a 20% reduction in sepsis-related deaths, which equates
to 67 lives being saved in one year!
Meredith Palmer, RN (left), and Anisa Xhaja
www.uabmedicine.org
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