Blessing Health targets smarter sepsis surveillance with Wolters Kluwer

Each year in the United States, sepsis accounts for 270,000 deaths and costs nearly $27 billion — making it one of the largest cost drivers for U.S. hospitals.¹ To quickly identify and best care for patients with sepsis or sepsis shock, Blessing Health System (Blessing), an integrated health system in Quincy, Illinois, has selected POC Advisor from Wolters Kluwer, Health.

By analyzing patient data in real-time and transforming it into actionable guidance, POC Advisor empowers clinicians to rapidly respond to sepsis symptoms and risk to make the most effective clinical decisions at the right time. The move expands Blessing's adoption of Wolters Kluwer's clinical surveillance suite by adding POC Advisor to its Sentri7 infection prevention and pharmacy surveillance solutions.

POC Advisor is in use at Blessing Hospital, the health system’s acute care hospital in Quincy, IL, and at its critical-access hospital in Pittsfield, IL, Illini Community Hospital.

The first signs of sepsis: early and accurate detection

Blessing employs a collaborative approach to sepsis symptom detection and management with various care settings across the health system. Historically, this process was largely retrospective and relied on a multi-disciplinary group of clinicians to review cases, track data, and outcomes, and stay up to date on evolving guidelines and protocols for sepsis management. Now with a sepsis coordinator on board using POC Advisor's centralized patient monitor and advanced analytics capabilities, Blessing can streamline manual, time-intensive processes. This sepsis surveillance solution monitors patients in real-time to better identify and alert on sepsis cases allowing clinicians to intervene earlier.

"Early detection of sepsis is a challenge for many health systems, and we were determined to tackle this through more proactive monitoring," said Mary Barthel, MD, Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Blessing Health System. "Using POC Advisor, we can now deliver real-time patient status updates to our clinicians so they can intervene immediately with an evidence-based approach to help save more lives and improve our sepsis bundle compliance. By combining advanced technology with our sepsis coordinator on the ground, we are better equipped to identify patients who develop sepsis earlier and optimize their care."