Advancing Health: 20% Drop in Sepsis Mortality—Inside Ochsner Health’s Life-Saving Strategy

Podcast by American Hospital Association | June 23, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Ochsner Health’s remarkable 20% reduction in risk-adjusted sepsis mortality across its 48-hospital system. Host Dr. Chris Di Rienzo sits down with Stephen Saenz, PA and sepsis program manager, and Teresa Arrington, Director of Quality and Performance Improvement, to explore the initiative’s origins, innovative solutions, workflow redesign, technological tools, scaling strategies, and national impact. Their discussion provides a candid look at practical challenges, iterative learning, and replicable tactics for complex, system-wide improvement in time-sensitive care.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Sepsis Quality Initiative

• Early Days and Challenge Identification (01:22–03:40)

  • Initial efforts were case-based and lacked systemization; learning from morbidity and mortality reviews, but failing to consistently apply improvements.
  • Around 2020, Dr. Richard Guthrie (Chief Quality Officer) led a data-driven deep dive, revealing that sepsis accounted for over half of mortality in the system—a clear priority for targeted intervention.
  • Formation of a “system drive team” including leadership, quality professionals, and frontline physician thought-leaders to create foundational structures for sepsis improvement.

• Quote:
  “In fact, [sepsis] is associated with more than half of the mortalities in our system. So it felt like a really great place to start.”
  – Teresa Arrington (02:06)

2. Structuring for Success: The Multidisciplinary Team

• Novel Roles and Collaboration (03:40–05:33)

  • Uniquely broad physician involvement included not just hospitalists and ED doctors, but those deeply versed in informatics, bridging clinical practice and health IT.
  • Focus on multi-stakeholder buy-in—core CDC recommendation—and on dynamic, tech-driven workflow design with direct clinical input.

• Quote:
  “When you can combine that clinical acumen as well as some of the tech... you really start to get somewhere that feels like... it’s manageable and making a difference.”
  – Teresa Arrington (04:39)

3. Reducing Alert Fatigue and Smart Workflow

• Example: Instead of frequent interruptive alerts (“OPAs”), only actionable prompts are deployed, keeping clinicians focused and reducing burnout—a decision shaped directly by those experiencing the workflows day-to-day.
  • Quote:
    “If there is not an action associated with it... we’re not going to push that to you. And thereby it reduces some of that alert fatigue and helps to harness the attention where it needs to be.”
    – Teresa Arrington (05:07)

4. Standardization and Flexibility Across Hospital Types

• Unified Approach with Local Adaptation (06:24–09:15)

  • Systemwide standard of care made possible by unified EMR (Epic) and consistent workflows; ensures all patients receive the same baseline quality.
  • Local site leaders are empowered to tailor how national protocols (like the CMS “Total Perfect Care” sepsis bundle) are achieved, acknowledging resource and workflow diversity from major academic centers to small critical access hospitals.
  • Focus on enabling excellence, not rigid uniformity.

• Quote:
  “We have the certain tenets that we have to follow... but in terms of how to operationalize that, we have left that largely to the leadership at the individual facilities because they know their resources and their constraints and their culture better than we ever could at a system level.”
  – Teresa Arrington (08:20)

5. Technological Innovation: Predictive Algorithms & AI

• Proactive Tools and Early Alerts (09:15–11:06)

  • Leveraging “the vast information that’s input into Epic,” the system offloads risk stratification and early warning to predictive models, triggering timely sepsis screenings and interventions—especially empowering for nursing workflows.
  • Ochsner positions itself as a leader on the applied-AI front in clinical care.

• Quote:
  “We’re really, I feel like here at Ochsner, kind of leading on the AI front... to help protect patients, as well as developing all the workflows to help then support that decision when it’s made.”
  – Stephen Saenz (10:46)

6. Measurable Outcomes and Scaling Impact

• Dramatic Mortality Reduction and National Reach (11:06–13:17)

  • 20% decrease in primary sepsis risk-adjusted mortality over two years—across all 48 hospitals.
  • Tools and workflows developed with Epic are disseminated nationwide, used by other health systems.
  • Process characterized by iterative feedback, real-time learning, and continued willingness to adapt solution design.

• Quote:
  “We are excited to share that we have, over the past two years, dropped our primary sepsis risk adjusted mortality by 20%, which is incredible, especially... at this large system level, not at a singular campus.”
  – Teresa Arrington (11:39)

• Quote:
  “We've developed a lot of tools in collaboration with Epic... We're happy to share that information at Epic conferences, at other medical conferences, and then across, you know, anyone who's using the Epic system for their EHR.”
  – Stephen Saenz (13:26)

7. Continuous Improvement & Broader Application

• Forward Momentum and Replicability (13:17–14:44)

  • Emphasize that the journey is ongoing—“Improvement is a journey, not a destination.”
  • The “recipe for success” is being adapted to other critical care pathways like stroke and STEMI.
  • Willingness to share learning widely and maintain a posture of continuous adaptation.

• Quote:
  “We believe we have found a recipe for success in how to bring attention and drive change in time-sensitive disease states. And we are excited to be replicating this same structure... with stroke and with STEMI.”
  – Teresa Arrington (14:26)

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the Power of Systemization:
  “You really have to support that team in making their workflow work for everybody... Really everyone had to be on the same page.”
  – Stephen Saenz (07:00)

• On Reaching National Impact:
  “Other hospitals are kind of being inspired by some of the work that we're doing, but we're not done yet. There’s still a lot more to keep at.”
  – Stephen Saenz (13:46)

Important Timestamps

• 01:22 – How the sepsis journey began at Ochsner
• 03:40 – Multidisciplinary, informatics-driven leadership structure
• 05:07 – Tackling “alert fatigue” and actionable workflow redesign
• 07:00 – Standardized care systemwide and the challenge of local adaptation
• 09:15 – Use of predictive algorithms and AI in sepsis detection
• 11:39 – 20% reduction in mortality: What it means and how it was achieved
• 13:17 – Scaling tools to other systems and continual improvement
• 14:26 – Applying the sepsis strategy to stroke and STEMI pathways

Takeaways

Ochsner Health’s sepsis improvement initiative stands as a model for large-scale, data-driven, and clinician-led quality improvement. Its mix of standardized protocols, flexible local deployment, technology-enabled workflows, and real-time adaptation led to a 20% drop in sepsis mortality. By collaborating both internally and with health IT partners like Epic—and by actively sharing their tools and insights—Ochsner is setting a new national bar for acute care improvement and system-level learning.