Sepsis is a growing healthcare crisis, causing over 11 million deaths worldwide. Early recognition and timely, comprehensive therapeutic interventions improve patient outcomes and have been codified in current clinical guidelines and government reporting requirements. However, non-specific presenting symptoms that mimic other diagnoses combined with multiple clinical definitions lead to diagnostic uncertainty. Identifying the undiagnosed septic patient within the sea of undifferentiated patients simultaneously presenting to the Emergency Department is challenging and can lead to potential treatment delays with associated increases in morbidity and mortality.

During this on-demand webinar hosted by 360 Dx, Dr. Osborn and Dr. Farnsworth will discuss how teamwork between the laboratory and clinical medicine can improve patient care through earlier identification and treatment of septic patients. They will discuss the challenges associated with current screening biomarkers, as well as the opportunities presented by a novel sepsis biomarker, monocyte distribution width.

• Explain the relationship between early sepsis treatment and improved patient mortality
• Differentiate among Sepsis-2 and Sepsis-3 definitions and common sepsis screening criteria such as qSOFA and SIRS
• Review published evidence supporting the effectiveness of monocyte distribution width in early sepsis detection

P.A.C.E. credit is available for your participation.* View instructions here. P.A.C.E. number 030-868-20

Ideal For: Laboratory Technician, Laboratory Director, Medical Director, Pathologist, Physician

Presenters:

Tiffany Osborn, MD, MPH

Tiffany Osborn, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Surgery and Emergency Medicine. Within the combined field of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care, she is the first female in the United States to attain full professor and is triple boarded in emergency medicine, US critical care and European critical care. She works in the Surgical/Trauma Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Osborn serves on the National Quality Forum Sepsis Technical Expert Panel, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) TEP for the Clinical Emergency Data Registry(CEDR)and the Emergency Quality(E-QUAL) Network Sepsis Initiative. She served on the analytical team supporting the New York State Department of Health’s evaluation of state-mandated sepsis initiatives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Sepsis Task Force, and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign. She worked on the National Quality Forum’s Infectious Disease Committee and as a sepsis consultant for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement assisting with implementing sepsis measures across multiple hospitals in New York.

Under her leadership as the BJH director of hospital sepsis quality improvement, the Vizient mortality index decreased 39% with concurrent national sepsis ranking improving 64%. She now serves BJC as the physician champion for sepsis quality improvement across the hospital system. Dr. Osborn is the Washington University Department of Surgery, Director of Leadership and Professionalism focusing on collaboration, diversity, inclusiveness and positive culture change. Dr. Osborn completed her emergency medicine residency at the University of Maryland and her surgical/trauma critical care fellowship at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, MD. She completed a Masters of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before working as the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) trial clinician for Protocolised Management in Sepsis (ProMISe).

Christopher Farnsworth, PhD, DABCC

Christopher Farnsworth, PhD is an instructor in the Department of Pathology & Immunology at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Farnsworth serves as the medical director of Clinical Chemistry, Point of Care testing, and the Special Pathogens Laboratory at Barnes Jewish Hospital.

Dr. Farnsworth completed his PhD at the University of Rochester in 2017 assessing the adaptive immune response to S. aureus in diabetic foot infections and orthopedic implant associated infections. He went on to complete a fellowship in Clinical Chemistry at Washington University while simultaneously performing post-doctoral research assessing the impact of inflammatory stimuli on tissue resident macrophages in the peritoneum. His primary research interests include biomarkers of infectious disease and association of illicit opioid use with transmission of infection.

Dr. Farnsworth participates in multiple local and national committees to improve laboratory testing and education. Locally, he is an active participant in the Clinical Laboratory Steering Committee for the BJC Healthcare System. Nationally, he is an active participant in the Society for Young Clinical Laboratorians and he serves as a committee member for the Policy and External Affairs Committee for the AACC. He serves as a co-director of Washington University’s Clinical Chemistry fellowship program and he is the director of continuing education courses for medical laboratory technologists and laboratory associates at Barnes Jewish Hospital.

Related article

Monocyte Distribution Width Adds Value to Early Sepsis Detection

Referenced in this webinar

Early sepsis detection