How Michigan can prevent sepsis deaths

IHPI member Colin Cooke, M.D., M.Sc., M.S., published a piece in The Detroit News calling for state policymakers to form a statewide Sepsis Care Commission.

A medical illness affecting more than 45,000 people each year that kills almost 20 percent of those it afflicts, sepsis is the body’s over-exuberant response to an infection, such as pneumonia, urine infection or infected skin wounds. The body’s normal response to fight the infection goes haywire and instead causes vital organs to fail and blood pressure to drop, causing shock and, in many cases, death.

Cooke notes that the formation of such a commission should bring together the important stakeholders involved in the care of patients with sepsis, including emergency medical services, hospitals, sepsis researchers, physician and nurse leadership, policymakers, insurers and advocacy groups. The charge of the committee would be to issue recommendations on how to improve identification and management of patients with sepsis statewide, across the continuum of care from the pre-hospital setting through discharge to home.

He urges that Michigan needs to act now to developing and implementing a coordinated plan to identify and appropriately treat patients with sepsis before we lose additional lives.