New emergency department screening helps UK HealthCare identify sepsis sooner

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 24, 2026) — Each year, about 1.7 million adults and more than 18,000 children in the U.S. develop sepsis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, at least 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 10 children who develop sepsis die during hospitalization or are discharged to hospice.

Sepsis is a medical emergency that can quickly develop into septic shock or multiorgan failure. It is the body’s extreme and overwhelming response to an infection.

Sepsis can occur because of almost any type of infection, but common ones include pneumonia, urinary tract or skin infections. A person might have clammy or sweaty skin, confusion, extreme pain, fever, shivering or feel cold, high heart rate or weak pulse and shortness of breath.

Anyone can develop sepsis, but some people are at higher risk, including infants, adults over 65, people who have recently had a severe illness, surgery or hospitalization, and people with underlying conditions such as cancer, uncontrolled diabetes, kidney disease or liver disease.

It is critical that frontline healthcare workers, most commonly in the emergency department and intensive care units identify and treat sepsis in its early stages for the highest chance of survival.

At UK HealthCare, Patrick Grace, M.D., assistant chief medical officer for the UK Albert B. Chandler Hospital and Victoria Camenisch, a quality improvement clinical facilitator nurse and the lead facilitator for UK HealthCare’s sepsis task force have collaborated to launch a new screening protocol for patients arriving at the emergency department.

Nurses first screen patients for any indicators of infection or concerning vital signs. They look at heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and breathing rate. If a patient screens positive, this would prompt next steps such as informing a physician, lab work, blood cultures, and earlier consideration for antibiotics, IV fluids or other treatment measures.

“The sepsis triage screening is a quick step built into the existing nursing assessment. By flagging potential cases earlier, it helps physicians identify possible sepsis sooner and begin care more quickly,” Camenisch said.

This project originated from Camenisch’s work with Care Progressions, a UK HealthCare initiative aimed at reducing length of stay. The team found that sepsis care was an opportunity for growth after noticing a trend in longer hospital stays for patients being treated for sepsis.

Camenisch said to dive deeper into the root cause, she collaborated with sepsis care navigators at other hospitals, including UK HealthCare hospitals — UK St. Claire and UK King’s Daughters — and found they were screening patients for sepsis as soon as they arrived, which helped improved their outcomes.

Sepsis screening’s integration into UK HealthCare’s Albert B. Chandler Hospital’s ED was the result of a collaborative effort of the Enterprise Adult Sepsis Task Force. Camenisch helped spearhead the initiative, while Grace worked with ED physicians to streamline the clinical workflows that support the screening process.

The screening was part of a broader effort to improve sepsis care in the ED, which included changes to physician workflows, prebuilt communication tools between nurses and physicians, visual sepsis indicators on the department tracking board and other internal workflow improvements.

The new sepsis efforts were launched this past March, and ED leaders are already seeing sepsis screening become a routine part of patient care and promising results in their SEP-1 bundle compliance, which is a hospital’s adherence to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services protocol for treating sepsis.

“People are talking about sepsis and the screening more; it’s a more common part of the vernacular now than it was a year ago,” Grace said.

Although Camenisch and Grace helped drive adoption of the new workflow, the ED staff who put it into practice every day deserve equal recognition.  

“Success would not be possible without their collaboration, and they have all been great. Our physician and nursing colleagues have been amazing throughout the whole process,” Camenisch said.

With the new screening tool now in place, the work continues. Because not all sepsis cases enter through the ED, the next step is to strengthen inpatient sepsis care and standardize intervention and treatment across the hospital.

“Have confidence that what we’re doing in our emergency departments is to keep a keen eye out for this condition and that we want to treat it promptly,” Grace said. “Early recognition and early intervention is what makes a difference in this disease state.”

If you, or especially elderly or a young, loved one is showing any unusual symptoms, including confusion, trouble breathing, weakness or feeling sicker than expected, it’s critical not to ignore worsening infection signs and seek care immediately.