Early Detection Is The Key Element To Successful Sepsis Treatment
As a nursing home lawyer who has been involved in many cases where where 'sepsis' is listed as a cause of death, I can attest to the devastating effects this complication has on patients with bed sores (similarly called: pressure sores, pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers) and other medical conditions.
To those unfamiliar with sepsis, it is a severe infection that effects the complete body.
The wide-reaching effects of sepsis surprised even me. According to statistical analysis of septic hospital patients:
- Sepsis is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.
- 1/3 of people who develop sepsis will die
- Sepsis results in more than $17 billion in medical expenses every year
The fight against sepsis has now begun!
The Banner Desert Medical Center (Arizona), is now the first medical center in the country to implement a sepsis detection program to help improve the survival rate of patients. The hospital uses a scientific formula to detect warning signs that are indicative of sepsis including:
- changes in body temperature
- increases in heart rate
- changes in respiratory rate
- white blood cell count
Once the early signs of sepsis are identified, the hospital is able to administer treatment quickly-- and greatly improve the patients survival rate. At Banner Medical Center, the hospital credits the new program with the early detection of sepsis in 60 patients within the first two-month period that traditional detection techniques were unable to spot. Read more about this important development in sepsis detection here.
My hope is that the sepsis detection instruments used at this hospital become common practice-- not just amongst hospital patients-- but nursing home patients as well who frequently receive delayed medical treatment because nursing home staff do not have the tools to make a diagnosis of sepsis.
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