Situation Report | April 19, 2021
Aided with a new 2021 grant written by HCA and awarded by the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, HCA has been preparing for the launch of a major new phase in our efforts to fight sepsis in the home care setting. While more detail will be released imminently on this initiative, the past several weeks have seen new and potentially pioneering ground broken by HCA in the extremely challenging area of pediatric sepsis.
Fueled with the talents of two Leadership In Medicine (LIM) interns hosted and mentored by HCA, tremendous work has been done very quickly and efficiently in researching and beginning to develop draft pediatric sepsis assessment tools that can be applied in home health.
For consistency, these tools will follow the basic design of HCA’s current adult sepsis screening tool, algorithm and protocol that are being utilized by providers serving nearly every county of the state. However, the new sepsis tool will be adapted for the exact clinical measures to match key and specific age categories for pediatric assessment.
This past week, HCA held an intensive working session with LIM interns, clinical experts from the HCA membership, individual members of the HCA Board, pediatric sepsis clinicians, national Sepsis Alliance and Global Sepsis Alliance clinicians, and other sepsis advisors to select and surgically align the criteria for the age groups.
The working group will continue to convene for further production and vetting of a draft tool. Once vetted, the tool will undergo beta testing under the HCA grant. It will then be further analyzed and refined, as necessary, and ultimately pilot tested by four major health systems with home health pediatric programs.
Like the HCA adult sepsis tool, this would be the first tool of its kind in the nation developed for system-wide use in pediatric home care.
Meanwhile, other state associations and providers around the country are continuing to adopt HCA’s sepsis tool for adults. Under the 2021 phase, and with the support of the grant, HCA will also soon be announcing a new education and training effort for adoption of the tool in any remaining unserved regions of the state, and to expanded settings beyond home health.
HCA looks forward to announcing these and other major exciting steps with our 2021 sepsis initiative soon.