Sepsis Alliance Partners with MHA Keystone Center to Launch First Statewide Sepsis Awareness Initiative in Michigan

May 11, 2016

Sepsis Alliance and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association’s (MHA) Keystone Center have announced the Michigan Sepsis Challenge Series, the first series in Michigan to raise sepsis awareness through 5K events and other sponsored activities.

San Diego – Sepsis Alliance, the first name in sepsis awareness, has partnered with the MHA Keystone Center to launch a statewide sepsis awareness program in Michigan. The MHA Keystone Center is a nonprofit, certified patient safety organization that works with hospitals and healthcare providers to improve patient safety and healthcare quality in Michigan and beyond. Through the Michigan Sepsis Challenge Series, the organizations are working with Michigan hospitals, nurses and a variety of medical professionals to host “Stomp Out Sepsis” 5K walks, runs and other sponsored events across the state.

“We are grateful to the MHA Keystone Center, as well as to our sponsors and volunteer nurses for hosting each event and taking on the important task of educating their communities about sepsis,” said Thomas Heymann, Executive Director of Sepsis Alliance. “We truly hope this will set an example for other states to follow.”

Sepsis kills 258,000 Americans every year, yet it is unknown to a majority of American adults. According to the annual Sepsis Alliance Awareness Survey, the recognition rate among U.S. adults is only 44 percent, causing many patients with sepsis to go untreated. Sepsis is a medical emergency that requires urgent attention and rapid treatment for survival. In most cases, sepsis can be stopped using existing and proven protocols.

The joint Stomp Out Sepsis activities and 5K run/walks are designed to raise awareness of sepsis within the community, unite medical professionals with the general public to promote sepsis education, and to raise funds for sepsis awareness programs.  The Michigan Sepsis Challenge Series is the first “challenge event” initiative to raise sepsis awareness at a statewide level.

“Sepsis has a dramatic impact on thousands of Michigan residents, and we are thrilled to be working with Sepsis Alliance to raise sepsis awareness among the public in Michigan,” said Phyllis McLellan, MHA Keystone Center’s director of performance improvement. “Since 2010, the MHA Keystone Center has been working with Michigan hospitals through the MHA Keystone: Sepsis Collaborative to improve awareness, identification and treatment of sepsis. We are currently working with over 105 Michigan and Illinois hospitals through the collaborative and our Hospital Engagement Networkpartnership. We hope we can save lives by raising awareness through the Michigan Stomp Out Sepsis events.”

Stomp Out Sepsis 5K events and sponsored activities are currently scheduled for Lansing, Rochester, and Northern Lower Michigan. The Sepsis Challenge series is presented nationally by bioMérieux, Leading BioSciences and Tenax Therapeutics. To find out more about the Stomp Out Sepsis series, how to register, or how to become a sponsor, visit https://michigan.sepsischallenge.org.

About Sepsis Alliance

Sepsis Alliance is the leading nonprofit patient advocacy organization in North America. Sepsis Alliance’s mission is to save lives by raising awareness of sepsis as a medical emergency. The organization hosts national and community events, distributes educational information, and promotes training and education on sepsis prevention and early recognition and treatment. Sepsis Alliance also support sepsis survivors and family members with information about sepsis and Post Sepsis Syndrome, as well as a Faces of Sepsis community forum. The sepsis.org website receives 1 million visits each year. Sepsis Alliance, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is a GuideStar Gold Rated Charity. For more information, please visit www.sepsis.org.

About MHA Keystone Center

The MHA Keystone Center is a nonprofit organization that brings patient safety experts and hospitals together to work in collaborative programs to improve patient safety and healthcare quality and to reduce medical errors. To date, the center has been funded by MHA-member hospitals, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. For more information, visit www.mhakeystonecenter.org. Follow the MHA Keystone Center on Twitter and LinkedIn.