Congratulations to the Winners of the 2019 Global Sepsis Awards
The Global Sepsis Awards, which are sponsored by the Erin Kay Flatley Memorial Foundation, honor outstanding efforts to increase sepsis awareness and raise the quality of sepsis prevention and management. The awards are granted in three categories, namely governments and healthcare authorities, non-governmental organizations, patient advocate or healthcare provider groups, and individuals, consistent with the aims of the World Sepsis Declaration and the World Sepsis Day Movement.
WINNERS CATEGORY I - GOVERNMENTS AND HEALTHCARE AUTHORITIES
The winner in category I is the Health Service Executive from Dublin, Ireland.
The Health Service Executive is awarded for its efforts to improve sepsis care in Ireland. The jury was particularly impressed with what the HSE has achieved in only a few years in Ireland, especially by improving recognition in the Emergency Department and in the in-patient, with all clinicians involved in acute patient care expected to recognize the at risk patient who is deteriorating due to infection and to start the Sepsis Six Bundle. Since 2016, the HSE publishes an annual outcome report, demonstrating an absolute reduction of 5% in mortality (20% relative reduction) hospital-wide. Lastly, the jury was impressed by tests of maternity and pediatric sepsis programs which are currently being rolled out across Ireland, and which could serve as a blueprint for other healthcare systems and countries in the future.
Winners Category II - Non-governmental organizations, patient advocate groups, or healthcare provider groups
The winners in category II are the German Sepsis Aid and the African Sepsis Alliance.
The German Sepsis Aid (German: Deutsche Sepsis-Hilfe e.V., DSH) is the world's first association of sepsis patients and their relatives. Their common goal is to raise awareness for the symptoms of sepsis and to fight the often lasting sequelae of this disease.
The jury awarded the German Sepsis Aid with the GSA Award for the following longtime achievements:
Providing a unique platform for sepsis survivors and their families to connect with each other, to share experiences, to find support and to attend trainings.
Establishing the "sepsis-hotline”, a telephone-helpline that was set up for those who have questions about sepsis. The number is 0700-737747-00. Specific medical questions can be forwarded to physicians who volunteer for German Sepsis Aid or to cooperating departments of the University Hospital Jena.
Providing the booklet “Information for Patients and Relatives”, with useful information about sepsis as well as numerous personal reports of sepsis patients. So far, this booklet has been sent to 2,350 representatives of ICU`s in Germany.
The DSH has been a supporter of World Sepsis Day for years and hosts events for WSD in Jena.
On request, the German Sepsis Aid is able to organize public training events on the subject of sepsis. The DSH provides information on its homepage and their Facebook page.
The African Sepsis Alliance (ASA) under the leadership of Dr. Emmanuel Nsutebu became the driving force for sepsis activities in Africa. The jury awarded the African Sepsis Alliance with the GSA Award for the following achievements:
The ASA published the Kampala declaration and campaign, drawing attention to the priorities for sepsis improvement in Africa. With over 2,500 signatories representing over 100 countries to date, the declaration demonstrates the multidisciplinary and wide-ranging response it planned to invoke at the patient, health facility, societal, and governmental level.
ASA is working with the Sudan Sepsis Alliance and Global Sepsis Alliance to produce the Khartoum Resolution. Said resolution commits the Khartoum Minister of Health to host a conference of African Ministers of Health to develop a strategy for sepsis improvement in Africa.
Winners Category III - Individual Nominees
The winners in category III are Prof. Dr. Necmettin Unal from Turkey and Dr. Rasha Ashour from Qatar.
Professor Necmettin Unal was awarded because under his presidency, the Turkish Society of Intensive Care developed and implemented a national strategy to fight sepsis in Turkey. Highlights of this strategy between 2014 and 2019 were:
Developing and conducting a sepsis education program for health care professionals, with participation of over 47,000 health care professional from 79 cities in Turkey.
Conducting a study on the knowledge of lay people in Turkey with more than 1,600 participants. This study demonstrated that only 11% did know the word sepsis.
Conducting a knowledge evaluation survey on medical students that included more than 7,000 students from 30 medical faculties.
Organizer and co-author of the first study on sepsis epidemiology in Turkish intensive care units, which was published in an international journal.
Organizer of press conferences with broad coverage in national print and TV media in context of World Sepsis Day.
Organizer of awareness and education activities of 95 rotary clubs within Rotary district 2430.
Dr. Rasha Ashour from Sidra Medicine in Qatar is awarded for her efforts to create and implement a national sepsis initiative across Qatar. This program includes approved sepsis guidelines with standardized reliable evidence-based clinical care pathways for pediatric sepsis, which were shared with all Qatar healthcare facilities through the national patient safety collaborative in 2018.
She and her team are collecting data with the aim of decreasing mortality in pediatric patients with sepsis through increasing compliance to the Pediatric Sepsis Six Bundle of Care to 95% by end of December 2019 in all pediatric facilities in Qatar.
They also created a pediatric sepsis eLearning module, mandatory for all pediatricians, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals every two years.
Lastly, she and her team also developed a pediatric sepsis order set as well as the ‘golden hour’ order set to assure the order includes the Sepsis Six Bundle of Care within 60 minutes.
In addition to the 2019 GSA Award Winners above, the following organizations and individuals who have applied or have been nominated for the 2019 GSA Awards were honored by the GSA Award Jury for their excellent activities with a Certificate of Commendation:
Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety, US
Ohio Hospital Association, US
Croatian Society of Nurses in Anesthesiology, Reanimatology, Intensive Care and Transfusion, Croatia
U.O. Quality management and patients safety - Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Catania, Italy
Sepsisfonden, Sweden
Home Care Association of New York State, US
Annabelle Carter-Finch, US
Lisa Bartlett, US
Luciano Acevedo, Brazil
Over the coming months, we will give both the 2019 GSA Award Winners as well as the activities and initiatives by the entities that were commended the possibility to share their projects and initiatives in more detail on our websites.
We would like to once again applaud all activities in the fight against sepsis and encourage others to become involved in raising awareness of sepsis.
Congratulations again to all 2019 GSA Award Winners.
All awardees will receive their trophy and certificate at an upcoming international congress. Winners in category II and III will receive $2,500 prize money each. A huge thanks to everybody who applied. Applications and nominations for the 2020 GSA Award open in January 2020 and close on March 31st, 2020.