Key points
- Use this presentation to introduce hospital leaders to CDC's Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements and gain support to improve sepsis management and outcomes.
- Customize slides with facility data, needs, goals, and proposed sepsis program structure.
How to use this presentation
Background
This presentation template is one resource from the CDC for implementing the Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements (Sepsis Core Elements) in your hospital. You can tailor this presentation to gain your leadership's commitment to build a successful sepsis program or show them how they can support your hospital's existing program. These slides are editable. Add information specific to your facility or region to strengthen your case to hospital leadership about why investments in sepsis are critical to your facility's success. Consider downloading a print version of the Sepsis Core Elements for your audience to reference while you provide the following overview.
Use this presentation if you are a:
- Sepsis champion
- Quality manager
- Patient safety coordinator
- Health system representative
- Infection control expert
Show this presentation to:
- The proposed Executive Sponsor for the sepsis program who can reduce barriers to implementing the Sepsis Core Elements. This would be someone from hospital and health system leadership such as the following:
- Chief Clinical Officer
- Chief Medical Officer
- Chief Nursing Officer
- Chief Quality Officer
- Multidisciplinary groups and potential specific people who could be part of your proposed sepsis program and committee structure. These groups could include:
- Antimicrobial stewardship
- Critical care
- Emergency medicine
- Hospital medicine
- Infectious diseases
- Nursing
- Other primary services (Example: surgery, oncology, obstetrics, pediatrics), pharmacy, and social work
Leadership buy-in is critical to success
- To reduce barriers and drive engagement
- To set sepsis performance improvement as a priority
- To allocate necessary program resources, including:
- Personnel
- Analytic support
- Staff time for sepsis activities
Tailoring the presentation to your facility for optimal impact
Before giving this presentation, think through what implementation of some of the Sepsis Core Elements would look like in your facility. Complete the following steps to tailor it to your facility/system. Local data and information will help your presentation have more relevance and a greater impact. You may have to work closely with your facility's infection preventionist or other related contacts to secure this information.
Some of the actions listed will require time and planning. Be ready to answer questions about timelines, resources needed, or which departments you'd need to work with in the early stages.
Gather the following information:
- Claims/Billing data – from hospital data and analytics staff
- Number of sepsis cases per year (e.g., ICD-10-CM codes for R65.20 Severe sepsis without septic shock, R65.21 Severe Sepsis with septic shock, A41.9 Sepsis, unspecified organism, and A40-A41 [organism-specific codes]) (Slide 2)
- Number and rank of admissions with sepsis as principal diagnosis (Slide 2)
- Sepsis cost (Slide 2)
- The patients and families who are impacted by sepsis are more than just numbers.
- If you can, share a personal or patient story about sepsis to help the issue come to life (Slide 4).
- Stories like these and those shared by patient advocates from the Sepsis Alliance may be a compelling place to start.
- National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Annual Hospital Survey Patient Safety Component data. Users can see an overview of how the NHSN analysis report works and track their hospital's implementation of the Sepsis Core Elements.
- Current Sepsis Core Elements Score out of 28 (Slide 8). Connect with your NHSN facility administrator and follow the instructions here to see your Core Elements score: NHSN Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements Line List Guide [PDF – 368 KB].
- After running the report and getting your Core Elements score, add the results and identify any gaps or opportunities for improvement for your facility. (Slide 8)
- Needs analysis data
- The goal of this activity is to identify applicable regulatory or reporting requirements (Example: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS] Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: Management Bundle [SEP-1]), existing sepsis screening processes, treatment guidelines, and order sets. Obtain summary data on regulatory performance and use of sepsis screening tools and order sets to identify areas in need of improvement (Slides 8 and 10). This information includes the number of hours required for dedicated sepsis program work (Slide 8) and data/analytics/IT needs (Slides 8 and 12).
- Cost savings data
- Data to complete cost savings estimate for improved SEP-1 performance (Slide 8)
- See ROI Calculator for Improved SEP-1 performance based on decreased Length of Stay (LOS) Excel file. Include annual or monthly sepsis cases by DRG 870-872; average length of stay for patients with sepsis; average length of stay for patients with sceptic shock; annual or monthly SEP-1 performance, including numerator (compliance with measure) and denominator for charts abstracted; and the estimated cost per day of hospitalization for patients with sepsis.
- Potential return on investment (in dollars) (based on ROI calculator results) (Slide 8)
- Sepsis program goals
- Review your needs analysis data to determine the initial goals for your sepsis program (Slide 10)
- Overview of multidisciplinary groups and specific people who could be included in your proposed sepsis program and committee structure (Slide 11). Ensure that all relevant people are at the meeting with the proposed Executive Sponsor for the sepsis program.
- Name of someone at your hospital (Example: Chief Clinical Officer, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Nursing Officer, or Chief Quality Officer) who could serve as an effective Executive Sponsor for the sepsis program, ensuring the program can obtain necessary IT and personnel resources (Slide 12). It is critical to secure their support to ensure accountability for the sepsis program.
Related resources
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