Blue Cross goes nationwide with fight against sepsis

About 1.7 million people in the U.S. are hospitalized every year with sepsis, a life-threatening condition triggered by infection. About 350,000 of them end up dying, either in the hospital or after being discharged to hospice.

The sobering statistics drew the attention of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and the Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium, one of 20-plus collaborative quality initiatives sponsored by Blue Cross. Collaborative Quality Initiatives, or CQIs, are a component of our Value Partnerships program. Through CQIs, hospitals and physicians share patient risk factors and outcomes data on common medical care to support implementation of improvements.

Applying lessons learned from the portfolio of collaborative quality initiatives, the consortium developed a formal partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop the Hospital Sepsis Program Core Elements — a national roadmap for hospitals and clinicians.

The elements are:

• Hospital leadership commitment
• Accountability
• Multi-professional expertise
• Action
• Tracking
• Reporting
• Education

“We knew that sepsis would be a good fit under our Hospital Medical Safety umbrella because it is a major cause of hospitalizations, has a high mortality rate, and often has a lasting impact,” said Dr. Amy McKenzie, vice president, Clinical Partnerships, and associate chief medical officer at Blue Cross.

Dr. Hallie Prescott, who leads the consortium’s sepsis initiative, presented the roadmap in September 2023 at the National Forum on Sepsis.

“This was a tremendous amount of work that is really paying off, not only putting Michigan on the map as a leader but helping to position the CQIs as a model for quality initiatives for other states,” Dr. McKenzie said.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.