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Sepsis identification tool wins national patient safety prize

Sepsis award posterA tool developed by AHSNs which aims to save lives by making it easier to spot the signs of sepsis has won a national patient safety award.

The Suspicion of Sepsis (SOS) Insights dashboard took the Best Emerging Solution prize at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards.

It was developed by Imperial College Health Partners and the Patient Safety Measurement Unit building on initial work by the Oxford Patient Safety Collaborative on a methodology for measuring sepsis. For the first time it enables reliable data to be harnessed to monitor and assess the impact of interventions on deteriorating patients with SOS.

The judges said: “We were particularly impressed with the collaborative work this team undertook and the scale and pace of this project. We also commend the ambitious plans for further development.”

Find out more about the SOS Insights dashboard in this summary or this longer case study.

It was the second year running that the Oxford AHSN picked up one of the top prizes at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards. In 2018 the Good Hydration! initiative to reduce urinary tract infections in care homes won the Quality Improvement Initiative of the year award. Read more here.

Other winners at the 2019 HSJ Patient Safety Awards included Maternity and Midwifery Services Initiative of the Year – Reducing cerebral palsy in very premature babies through use of magnesium sulphate (PReCePT). This national programme initiated by the West of England AHSN is now supported by all AHSNs. Read more here

Two more AHSNs were also among this year’s winners. Find out who they were here.

Natasha Swinscoe, the AHSN Network’s national chief officer lead for patient safety, said: “These awards really demonstrate just how much patient safety is at the heart of so many of our innovation programmes. In each case, the judges praised our entries for their ambition and scale, and this is what the AHSNs are all about – taking strong evidence and proven innovations and collaborating with partners across our regional networks to spread these quickly and effectively.”

  • Last month another Oxford patient safety initiative – improving safe prescribing of anticoagulants in primary care – also won a national prize. Read more here