Tift Regional Medical Center accelerates sepsis detection with POC Advisor

Wolters Kluwer Health today announced that Tift Regional Medical Center, the flagship hospital of Southwell, a not-for-profit health system in South Central Georgia, has selected POC Advisor™ for more accurate, earlier detection and treatment of sepsis. POC Advisor’s real-time artificial intelligence (AI) analysis of patient data will further empower Tift’s sepsis care capabilities for earlier detection and rapid medical intervention at the earliest onset of sepsis.

“Early recognition of sepsis is critical. Our organization is focused on this goal to improve the care and outcomes of patients with sepsis. To support our attack on sepsis, we sought a solution that not only analyzes EHR data but includes natural language processing (NLP) of clinical notes to help our clinicians identify these patients earlier so that we can better provide the right care to the right patient at the right time,” said Dr. Jessica Beier, Medical Director of Quality and Safety, Tift Regional Medical Center.

“POC Advisor’s accurate, real-time identification of patients with sepsis helps our providers navigate the ‘fog of war’ in hospital departments to deliver evidence-based care in line with the SEP-1 septic shock management bundle,” added Dr. Eric Paulk, Medical Director, Tift Regional Medical Center Emergency Department.

Sepsis is the deadliest and most expensive condition treated in hospital critical care units, with septic shock carrying a 34 percent mortality rate. Early sepsis detection is critical to saving lives and decreasing the cost of care. By analyzing a broad cross-section of EHR data, including clinical notes using NLP, the platform can identify patients at risk of sepsis more than six hours earlier than EHR sepsis alerts. POC Advisor accounts for more than 4,000 co-morbidities, and the solution’s evidence-based algorithms dramatically reduce false positives for conditions that mimic sepsis.

At Tift Regional Medical Center, clinicians, including nurses, doctors and advanced practice providers (APP), will receive alerts with evidence-based protocols at the point of care. The solution’s intuitive analytic dashboards will showcase CMS quality performance metrics to reduce practice variation by identifying gaps in CMS SEP-1 bundle compliance. Additionally, the Alert Response dashboard will provide a comprehensive view of Tift Regional Medical Center’s clinician actions to promote continual improvement, educate staff and reduce unwarranted care variations.

"An AI-powered solution like POC Advisor is an essential piece of the puzzle to help healthcare team members recognize in real-time where the patient is at in the spectrum of illness and delivery of sepsis care," said Karen Kobelski, Vice President and General Manager for Clinical Surveillance, Compliance & Data Solutions at Wolters Kluwer, Health. "This advanced technology combined with Tift Regional Medical Center's comprehensive approach—including nurse-driven protocols and a dedicated sepsis coordinator—delivers critical insights and empowers teams to provide the right care to improve overall patient outcomes."