VANCOUVER -- Sepsis claims the lives of tens of thousands of Canadians each year. It's a widespread infection that travels through the bloodstream to the entire body.. leading to multi-organ failure and death. Now hospitals are taking aggressive measures to save more lives.
Four days after coming home from successful bowel surgery, Mary collapsed. Her friends were able to get to her by climbing over her balcony. She got to emergency just in time.
Mary says, "I was dehydrated. My blood pressure was down. I was cold, my temperature was very low and I was in a lot of trouble."
The next day Mary went into septic shock.
Mary explains, "essentially, all my systems failed and I had to be put on renal dialysis and my blood pressure had to be supported because it had gotten so low."
Sepsis begins with an infection that spreads thru the bloodstream. The body's immune reaction and toxins from the bacteria cause the blood pressure to drop and the bodys organ to start to fail.
Dr. Kirk Hollohan, ER Physician at St. Paul's Hospital, says, "It can progress in days and even up to hours. It can involve your heart, kidneys and brain and when that transpires to lower vital signs like blood pressure and cause other organs to fail. That's when people succumb to the diease."
Because it can progress so quickly.. hospitals like St. Paul's are stepping up their response by improving screening and testing and initiating treatment much earlier.
Dr, Hollohan says, "what we wanted to do is eliminate any delays in the care of a septic patient. Wheras couple hours, right now happens almost immediate."
Since the changes were implemented, the results have been dramatic. There's been a 50% decrase in patient deaths from sepsis and because patients were identified and treated earlier, they spent less time in the ICU.
Dr. Hollohan says, "we haven't used any new drugs per se, we just changed systems, delivered care in more timely fashion."
Mary ended up spending 10 days in intensive care. She and her friends, all former health care professors at UBC
were impressed by the treatment she received.
Mary says, "I'm still amazed I survived. I can only attribute it to what they did."
Mary also credits her friends for checking up on her and realizing something wasn't right. Yesterday, the ER team and Intensive Care unit at St. Paul's hospital were awarded a Canadian Health care service award for their life-saving sepsis strategy. Other hospitals in the lower mainland have adopted similar measures, but they don't have any data readily available about patient outcomes.
Monday June 19, 2006
