Wolters Kluwer Health is partnering with the Altos Group for a sepsis mortality reduction pilot that will put mobile technology, clinical content and change management programs to work in the hopes of encouraging early sepsis identification and intervention.

The Reston, Va.-based Altos Group is a consulting firm that works with providers to implement change management programs aimed at improving patient outcomes. Headed by Julie A. Kliger, its methodology and services have proven effective at impacting sepsis rates. In one case, profiled recently by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a 54.5 percent reduction in average mortality rates was achieved within three years across nine California hospitals.

"Sepsis is the top preventable cause of death in hospitals. And while hospitals have been proactive in their efforts to reduce its devastating and often fatal consequences, sepsis rates remain unacceptably high because traditional approaches fail to address the human factors involved in early detection and proper treatment," said Kliger. "By combining The Altos Group's change management expertise with Wolters Kluwer Health's advanced decision support technologies and superior clinical content, we are closing the gaps that have hampered hospitals' efforts to intervene before sepsis becomes life-threatening."

This isn't the first time researchers have sought to use innovative techniques to educate providers about the danger of sepsis. Earlier this year, researchers at California's Stanford School of Medicine launched Septris, a video game that can be played on a desktop PC or certain mobile devices, that challenges players to save the lives of patients with sepsis. Players are compelled to spot the warning signs of impending sepsis and treat the condition before it kills the patient.

"This is another mode of learning," said Eric Gluck, MD, who specializes in critical care medicine, internal medicine and pulmonary disease at Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital and played the game. "The idea of a game model, where a physician gets to solve problems and then gets immediate feedback ... is good. So much of medical learning is tedious."

The Wolters Kluwer Health/Altos Group sepsis mortality reduction program focuses on early detection and applying best practices to treating the septic patient. In addition to reducing overall patient mortality, costs and lengths of stay, the goal of the program is to identify and address the top healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) that drive sepsis mortality, officials said. This will be accomplished through a three-pronged approach that couples mobile software with actionable content, driven by Wolters Kluwer Health tools and supplemented by change management consulting services.

"A sepsis crisis is gripping the U.S. healthcare system, claiming 215,000 lives and burdening the system with $16.7 billion in unnecessary healthcare expenditures," said Linda R. Peitzman, MD, chief medical officer for Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions. "Software and clinical content alone are not enough to change that. Sepsis can only be eliminated if we also pay attention to workflow and human factors."

Hospitals interested in being considered as a pilot site for this program should contact Andy Strunk, innovation lab program director at Wolters Kluwer, at andy.strunk@wolterskluwer.com.