Real-time Sepsis Screening and Provider Notification Using the Electronic Health Record

Executive Summary

The current Electronic Health Record (EHR) used by the Indian Health Service has no known capability to warn healthcare providers when a cluster of vital signs metrics collected on a patient indicate the possibility of sepsis in real-time. This is detrimental to patient safety, quality of care and places an unnecessarily high financial burden on the service units where these patients seek care. This project aims to improve the Electronic Health Record to make it possible for the EHR to: 1) analyze heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, respiratory rate and Oxygen Saturation measurements against preset normal values, 2) Analyze the abnormal values within the context of a sepsis screening tool; e.g., MEWS, qSOFA, etc. 3) provide real-time notification to healthcare providers if the combination of abnormal vital signs entered are indicative of sepsis.

Team Members

Nathan Moyer (Team Lead), IHS / Northern Cheyenne Service Unit
Tristan Goodluck, IHS / Northern Cheyenne Service Unit

Milestones

August 2017: Project selected into the HHS Ignite Accelerator
September 2017: Time in Accelerator Began
December 2017: Time in Accelerator Ended