Bayhealth Emergency Physicians Recognized for Sepsis Care

When an infection develops in the lungs, skin, or other areas, the body may have a severe response to the infection. This severe response is medically known as sepsis, and it requires immediate medical attention. As part of its mission to strengthen the health of the community and ensure it provides the best sepsis care to patients in the Emergency Departments (ED) at both of its hospitals, Bayhealth participated in a nationwide initiative by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).

At the completion of the initiative, ACEP named Bayhealth Emergency Physicians (BEP) at the Kent and Sussex Campuses to its Emergency Quality Network (E-QUAL) Honor Roll as top performers in its 2020 Sepsis Learning Collaborative. Bayhealth Emergency and Trauma Center, Kent and Sussex Campuses were among 272 EDs nationwide that submitted sepsis quality performance data for benchmarking during the initiative.

“There are several criteria, or indicators, that dictate your overall sepsis performance. For one of these indicators, in which we had our lowest performance, we improved from 77 percent at the Sussex Campus and 80 percent at the Kent Campus, respectively, to 100 percent at both campuses. Also, at the end of the initiative, both campuses were performing at 100 percent across the board for all of the indicators, which illustrates our drive and commitment to delivering the best sepsis care,” explained Bayhealth Emergency Physician Craig Hochstein, MD, who was the lead physician for the collaborative.

Dr. Hochstein said the marked improvement at both campuses and the end result of being named to the ACEP’s E-QUAL Honor Roll was a joint effort between BEP; Bayhealth’s Sepsis Committee led by Bayhealth Emergency Physician Ellie Salinski, MD; Bayhealth Clinical Integration Practice Value Improvement Analyst R. Gail Tanchanco, DMD, and the rest of the Clinical Integration department; Bayhealth’s nursing staff; and many others.

“I want to give the Sepsis Committee a lot of kudos because they were very instrumental in making this happen,” added Dr. Hochstein. “For example, they came up with a procedure to hang a checklist on the door of a patient with sepsis to help remind staff of sepsis protocols. Members of the committee also helped with getting everyone on board and complying.”

As Tanchanco shared, this is the third consecutive year BEP was named to ACEP’s E-QUAL Honor Roll. In the past, they were recognized for their efforts related to low-yield imaging scans.

“This is another success story for us. As Dr. Hochstein said, we couldn’t have done this without the collaboration and hard work of many groups, and our great appreciation goes to the Sepsis Committee, ED clinicians and staff, hospitalists, nursing, Performance Improvement, Clinical Integration, and everyone else who contributed to our success,” said Tanchanco.

Bayhealth Medical Director of Emergency Services Kelly Abbrescia, DO, is proud of the team’s accomplishment. “These awards are very prestigious, and they show our continued effort to provide excellent care, including sepsis care, to our community.”

Visit Bayhealth.org/Emergency to learn more about the Bayhealth Emergency and Trauma Centers.