{"id":15257,"date":"2018-04-11T10:48:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T16:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=15257"},"modified":"2024-12-05T16:41:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T23:41:00","slug":"preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing sepsis deaths: Personal tragedy fuels mission to save lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>A devastating tragedy two decades ago has fueled a deeply personal mission: preventing sepsis deaths.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15270\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15270\" style=\"width: 357px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15270 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"357\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized.webp 357w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized-300x294.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized-150x147.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized-200x196.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 357px) 100vw, 357px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15270\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Debra Malone, with her dad, Dr. Karl Shipman, who died tragically from sepsis. Malone now dedicates her career to preventing sepsis deaths. Photo courtesy of Debra Malone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In 1997, sepsis killed Debra Malone\u2019s father \u2013 a tragedy that his health care providers could have prevented if only they had recognized and acted on the signs of his rapidly escalating infection.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the fall of that year, Malone\u2019s father, Dr. Karl Shipman, was an internal medicine doctor in Denver. He was visiting a Vermont farmhouse that he owned when he fell from a ladder and broke his left wrist. A painful injury to be sure, but not one that should have threatened the life of a 64-year-old man who otherwise was in good health.<\/p>\n<p>But a series of misdiagnoses and questionable treatment decisions by those caring for Shipman in both clinics and hospitals allowed a staph infection to take hold and spiral out of control. By the time intensive-care specialists took over his care \u2013 and did a superb job, Malone said \u2013 Shipman had deteriorated so much that his doctors couldn\u2019t save him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was outraged at the errors and mishaps,\u201d said Malone, who at that time was working as a nurse in Vail.<br \/>\n<div class=\"su-callout-box col-xs-6 col-sm-6 right\" style=\"background-color:#dce4e7; color:#2e3b44;\">\n<p><strong>Quickly spotting sepsis &#8211; Saving lives<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Medical workers can use a quick monitoring system known as <a href=\"https:\/\/qsofa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">qSOFA<\/a> to spot patients whose organs may be shutting down. It uses three criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Low blood pressure (systolic blood pressure less than 100 hg)<\/li>\n<li>High respiratory rate (22 or more breaths per minute)<\/li>\n<li>Altered mental status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Patients who meet two or more of these criteria have a greater risk of a poor outcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>She discovered that the orthopedists treating her father had not taken his vital signs and treated pain he complained of in his neck and shoulders with physical therapy.<\/p>\n<p>About two months after the original injury, he was in extreme physical and mental distress. He was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a Denver hospital, but he lost precious time while his medical care team failed to recognize the infection that had entered his wrist and spine.<\/p>\n<p>The sepsis resulted in multiple organ failures, Malone said. She traced the clinical collapse leading to her father\u2019s death to entirely preventable human error.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s still mind-boggling to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Fighting sepsis\u00a0in memory of her dad<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Fast forward to March, 2016. Malone had become a nurse at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/locations\/uchealth-university-of-colorado-hospital-uch\/\">UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital<\/a><u>\u2019s<\/u> outpatient pre-op and post-anesthesia care units.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15264\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15264\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15264\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized.webp\" alt=\"Debra Malone, a UCHealth nurse, is dedicated to preventing sepsis death. Here she holds a clipping of a newspaper article about her dad's death from sepsis.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized.webp 1200w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized-1024x576.webp 1024w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized-768x432.webp 768w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized-150x84.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034712\/Sepsis-Debra-Malone-photo-sized-200x113.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15264\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Debra Malone displays a copy of a 1999 issue of Westword that told the story of her father\u0092&#8217;s death, which was caused by unrecognized sepsis. An accompanying photo shows Malone testifying that year to a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing about the need to expose medical errors like the ones that claimed her father&#8217;\u0092s life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>She attended an annual gathering of health professionals that UCHealth hosts called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/professionals\/research\/annual-rocky-mountain-interprofessional-research-evidence-based-practice-symposium\/\">Rocky Mountain Interprofessional and Evidence-based Practice Symposium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The name is a mouthful. But the event features presentations from researchers throughout the Denver area. For Malone, one word stood out above all others: sepsis.<\/p>\n<p>Among many people making presentations were UCHealth\u2019s sepsis coordinators, who since 2015 have been working to raise awareness among hospital providers about the warning signs of sepsis \u2013 a powerful response to infection that can lead to severe organ damage and death.<\/p>\n<p>The coordinators are part of UCHealth\u2019s system-wide efforts to reduce sepsis deaths by identifying the warning signs quickly and appropriately administering an infection-fighting bundle of care within three hours.<\/p>\n<p>After speaking to the coordinators, who presented data about their<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/uch-providers-look-to-throw-the-flag-on-sepsis\/\"> efforts to fight sepsis<\/a> and save lives, Malone said she had a simple response. \u201cI said, \u2018I need to be a part of this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Deadlier than heart attacks and strokes combined<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Numbers alone might have explained Malone\u2019s concern. In 2016, the federal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sepsis.org\/news\/new-u-s-government-report-reveals-annual-cost-of-hospital-treatment-of-sepsis-has-grown-by-3-4-billion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project released data<\/a> showing that sepsis cost the United States health care system $24 billion \u2013 more than any other condition. Sepsis also claimed more than a quarter-million lives annually.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15272\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15272\" style=\"width: 316px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15272\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040627\/Grandfather-holding-new-granddaughter-cropped-and-sized.webp\" alt=\"Dr. Karl Shipman died tragically from unrecognized sepsis. Here, he holds his granddaughter, Kali, when she was a newborn. Shipman's daughter and Kali's mom has dedicated her career to preventing sepsis deaths.\" width=\"316\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040627\/Grandfather-holding-new-granddaughter-cropped-and-sized.webp 316w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040627\/Grandfather-holding-new-granddaughter-cropped-and-sized-259x300.webp 259w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040627\/Grandfather-holding-new-granddaughter-cropped-and-sized-130x150.webp 130w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040627\/Grandfather-holding-new-granddaughter-cropped-and-sized-200x232.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 316px) 100vw, 316px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15272\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Karl Shipman holds Debra Malone&#8217;s newborn daughter, Kali. Shipman died tragically from sepsis and hasn&#8217;t gotten to see Kali grow up. Malone is fighting sepsis deaths in memory of her dad. Photo courtesy of Debra Malone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cBut people don\u2019t realize the magnitude of sepsis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In the two years since the symposium, Malone has made good on her promise to improve detection and treatment of sepsis. She launched sepsis screenings in outpatient clinics at University of Colorado Hospital \u2013 a first in the nation.<\/p>\n<p>As part of her successful credentialing project for UEXCEL \u2013 the hospital\u2019s clinical advancement ladder for nurses \u2013 she developed information kits and online learning modules to educate outpatient nurses and medical assistants about sepsis, its definitions, and the latest screen for gauging its risk, the <a href=\"https:\/\/qsofa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Quick Sepsis Related Organ Failure Assessment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Fighting for reform<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Malone didn\u2019t give the health care system a pass. She wrote the Colorado Medical Board to launch multiple state and federal regulatory investigations of her dad\u2019s death and joined a national campaign backed by the Society for Critical Care Medicine to put patient care in large ICUs in the hands of teams led by critical care specialists \u2013 something that was not the case for a crucial period when her father\u2019s infection raged through his body.<\/p>\n<p>Her work didn\u2019t stop there.\u00a0 She began searching for others who had suffered harm from medical miscues. That eventually led to a meeting in Chicago attended by members of the American Medical Association who, Malone said, \u201cwere touched by the stories.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15266\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15266\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15266\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized.webp\" alt=\"This diagram shows some of the signs of sepsis: altered mental state, fast respiratory rate and low blood pressure.\" width=\"400\" height=\"114\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized.webp 920w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized-300x86.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized-768x220.webp 768w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized-150x43.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11034719\/Sepsis-visual-sized-200x57.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15266\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nurse Debra Malone is educating people in outpatient clinics about a tool called qSOFA that can help them detect signs of sepsis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That led to her joining the National Patient Safety Foundation, which formed in 1997 to prod hospitals and health systems to look at medical errors from a system perspective, bring them into the open and use the lessons to bolster protection for patients. Malone traveled all over the country for a decade, sharing her story on behalf of the NPSF. She became a founding member of the Patient and Family Advisory Council of the NPSF.<\/p>\n<p>In 1999, she was living in Vail when she got a call from Washington, D.C. asking her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/person\/?82252\/DebraMalone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to testify<\/a> as part of a Senate subcommittee hearing on a landmark report by the Institute of Medicine (now the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalacademies.org\/hmd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Health and Medicine Division<\/a>) entitled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalacademies.org\/hmd\/~\/media\/Files\/Report%20Files\/1999\/To-Err-is-Human\/To%20Err%20is%20Human%201999%20%20report%20brief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cTo Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.\u201d<\/a> The report concluded that as many as 98,000 people in the U.S. die each year because of preventable medical errors \u2013 just as Karl Shipman had.<\/p>\n<p>Her advocacy work occurred as she continued her nursing career, which included stints in\u00a0intensive care units\u00a0and encounters with septic patients. That experience and the painful loss of her father delivered a simple but profound lesson, she said. \u201cAnybody in any situation can get sepsis.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Taking on sepsis in the clinics<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Malone\u2019s work is an important part of UCHealth\u2019s ongoing effort to reduce sepsis mortality, which has focused on the inpatient and emergency department settings, said Nicole Huntley, a clinical nurse specialist who is sepsis coordinator for University of Colorado Hospital\u00a0and co-chair of its Sepsis Steering Committee with Dr. Read Pierce.\u00a0Pierce is also an assistant professor for the <a href=\"https:\/\/medschool.cuanschutz.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">University of Colorado School of Medicine\u00a0<\/a>and \u00a0has a strong interest in quality improvement projects.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the first day that we met, Deb wanted to do the outpatient project,\u201d Huntley said. \u201cIt\u2019s few and far between to see that level of passion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Huntley credited Malone\u2019s \u201ceducation blitz\u201d \u2013 which included flyers, laminated cards, games, PowerPoint presentations, TED-style talks, learning modules and pre- and post-tests \u2013 for engaging outpatient nurses about their role in assessing sepsis risk and raising awareness among other staff, such as valets, of the danger signs, like elevated respiratory rates.<\/p>\n<p>There is no debate about the importance of monitoring hospitalized patients for signs of sepsis, and the emphasis on inpatient protocols is one factor that has helped UCH reduce its septic mortality by about 10 percent, according to data Huntley compiles. But she noted that roughly three-quarters of patients diagnosed with the condition come through the emergency department. She called the screening processes and interventions \u201cphenomenal,\u201d but the volume highlights the elusive nature of sepsis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose cases in the emergency department\u00a0may originate at home or in nursing homes or another setting, not the acute-care hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cWere some of these also followed up in clinics? We haven\u2019t been tracking that.\u201d Screening patients during clinic visits and flagging those at risk could head off later emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths, Huntley said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hope to see a further decline in mortality, and that is thanks to Debra Malone\u2019s efforts,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<h2>&#8216;Meant to be here&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Malone isn\u2019t finished. Her original goal was to implement a \u201cbest practice advisory\u201d alert that would\u00a0automatically appear in a patient&#8217;s electronic medical record\u00a0when a patient was at high risk for sepsis. That idea snagged over concerns that doctors and nurses already are coping with too many alerts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15271\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15271\" style=\"width: 514px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15271\" src=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040624\/Debra-and-her-dad-on-the-ski-slopes-sized.webp\" alt=\"Debra Malone has dedicated her career to preventing sepsis deaths after losing her dad to sepsis. Here, she poses with her dad on the ski slopes.\" width=\"514\" height=\"401\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040624\/Debra-and-her-dad-on-the-ski-slopes-sized.webp 514w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040624\/Debra-and-her-dad-on-the-ski-slopes-sized-300x234.webp 300w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040624\/Debra-and-her-dad-on-the-ski-slopes-sized-150x117.webp 150w, https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040624\/Debra-and-her-dad-on-the-ski-slopes-sized-200x156.webp 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 514px) 100vw, 514px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15271\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Debra Malone on the ski slopes with her dad, Dr. Karl Shipman. Malone now fights sepsis deaths in honor of her dad. Phote courtesy of Debra Malone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As an alternative, Malone and Pierce requested permission from five outpatient medical directors to pilot the alerts\u00a0in their clinics. These include the Cancer Center, the General Surgery, Infectious Disease and Urology clinics, and the A.F. Williams Family Medicine Clinic. As of mid-February, General Surgery, Urology and A.F. Williams had firmly committed to the six-month trial, Pierce said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeb\u2019s pilot is important to help us determine if we can reliably identify early sepsis in patients arriving to our clinics \u2013 not simply to our emergency department,\u201d Pierce said. \u201cWhile the number of sepsis cases in our clinics is likely to be low, as the health system works to improve access to ambulatory care \u2013 including an emphasis on increasing access to visits on the same day a patient calls with an urgent symptom \u2013 we are likely to catch more early sepsis in the ambulatory setting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pierce added that the pilot will allow the hospital to test that hypothesis in a research framework that includes qSOFA as the standard screen and to collect data that reveals \u201cif using that screening tool is worth the effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Malone, this latest phase is part of a steadily closing circle. In April, she will make a podium presentation about her project at the same symposium that reignited her interest two years earlier. Speaking of sepsis will be bittersweet, but her father\u2019s memory demands it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt seems like I was meant to be here,\u201d she said as she sat in her small office with a pile of clippings and photos from her long fight for patient safety at hand. \u201cI shed many tears throughout this process, but I am working on something greater than myself. The sepsis project hit me in the heart. I knew I had to be part of it. There was no option to opt out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A devastating tragedy two decades ago has fueled a deeply personal mission: preventing sepsis deaths. In 1997, sepsis killed Debra Malone\u2019s father \u2013 a tragedy that his health care providers could have prevented if only they had recognized and acted on the signs of his rapidly escalating infection. Back in the fall of that year, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2143,"featured_media":15270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[606,235,162,1581,351,702,938,1497],"class_list":["post-15257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovative-care","tag-a-f-williams-family-medicine-clinic","tag-emergency-care","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-patient-and-family-advisory-council","tag-primary-care","tag-surgical-care","tag-uchealth-cancer-center","tag-uchealth-university-of-colorado-hospital"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Preventing sepsis deaths: Personal tragedy fuels mission to save lives - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital nurse Debra Malone lost her father to sepsis. She\u2019s now leading a groundbreaking effort to raise outpatient clinics\u2019 awareness of the signs of sepsis and how to treat it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preventing sepsis deaths: Personal tragedy fuels mission to save lives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital nurse Debra Malone lost her father to sepsis. She\u2019s now leading a groundbreaking effort to raise outpatient clinics\u2019 awareness of the signs of sepsis and how to treat it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UCHealth Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uchealthorg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-11T16:48:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-05T23:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/04\/11040621\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tyler Smith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@uchealth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tyler Smith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tyler Smith\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/98c85c0e40c4933eedcec2cd054f349d\"},\"headline\":\"Preventing sepsis deaths: Personal tragedy fuels mission to save lives\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-11T16:48:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-05T23:41:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1932,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.uchealth.org\\\/today\\\/preventing-sepsis-deaths-personal-tragedy-fuels-mission-to-save-lives\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/6\\\/2018\\\/04\\\/11040621\\\/Daddy-and-Debra-photo-sized.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"A.F. 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