Patient Safety Movement Foundation & Global Sepsis Alliance Join Forces to Reduce Preventable Deaths from Sepsis

Over 12,000 Registrants to Participate in the Virtual 1st World Sepsis Congress on Sept. 8-9, 2016

Sep. 09, 2016 15:45
IRVINE, CALIF.--(Business Wire / Korea Newswire)--The Patient Safety Movement Foundation is happy to announce its sponsorship and participation in the 1st World Sepsis Congress on September 8-9, 2016, convened by the Global Sepsis Alliance. Featured speakers include German Minister of State, Dr. Helge Braun, Joe Kiani, Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director-General of the WHO, Achim Steiner, former Under-Secretary General UN and Director of UNEP, and many leading clinical experts from around the world. For more information on the program: www.worldsepsiscongress.org/program.

The 1st World Sepsis Congress is an introduction and prelude to the 5th World Sepsis Day to be held on September 13th - www.world-sepsis-day.org. Over 130 countries will participate in the Congress which has registered over 12,000 participants, the largest conference on Sepsis ever to be held. Sepsis, commonly referred to as ‘blood poisoning’, is the life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection results in organ dysfunction or failure. Sepsis is often confused with other conditions early on, and delayed recognition of the signs and symptoms can lead to multi-system organ failure and ultimately death.

In 13 distinctive sessions, over 70 speakers from 20 developing and developed nations will provide keynote presentations on one of the leading causes of death worldwide: sepsis. From prevention to acute management, from long-term side effects to the epidemiology of sepsis -- a wide range of topics related to sepsis will be addressed. Additionally, there will be a panel discussion with sepsis survivors and their families. After each talk, speakers will answer questions from the audience in a moderated discussion. Participation is completely free of charge and requires a brief online registration. To register, please visit https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1106962.

“We in the Global Sepsis Alliance have come together to increase public and professional awareness of sepsis - a problem that is common, global in scope, and devastating in its consequences,” said Dr. Konrad Reinhart, Chair of the Global Sepsis Alliance. “We are grateful for our partnership with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and all the excellent work they are doing to help our efforts in reducing sepsis. We know the toll of sepsis can be reduced but we recognize that a major barrier to success lies in the fact that sepsis is largely unknown to the public, and poorly understood by professionals. Too many people develop sepsis. Too few survive, and we intend to change this.”

“We are excited to see the tremendous number of clinicians that have signed up to attend this Congress. Early detection of Sepsis is one of our Actionable Patient Safety Solutions and we found that it is vital that hospitals develop a team approach to implement a protocol for early sepsis identification and treatment,” stated Joe Kiani, Founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. “We are impressed with the work the Global Sepsis Alliance is doing and look forward to partnering with them to dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, the number of preventable deaths from sepsis around the world by the year 2020.”

Mr. Kiani continued; “one of the reasons we began the Patient Safety Movement Foundation was to deal with Sepsis through data sharing by the medical technology companies. We believe that powerful predictive algorithms can be deployed to detect sepsis in time to treat it, if data from patient monitors, blood lab machines to EMR could be freed. To date over 60 companies have signed our public pledge to share their data. We believe soon, early sepsis detection will become reality.”

Despite advances in modern medicine, including vaccines, antibiotics, and acute care, sepsis remains the primary cause of death from infection with hospital mortality rates between 30 and 60 percent. In the developing world sepsis accounts for 60-80 percent of lost lives per year, affecting more than 6 million newborns and children annually, and over 100,000 women who contract sepsis in the course of pregnancy and childbirth. In all countries where data on hospitalizations for sepsis are available, the number of cases has increased steadily. The US Center for Disease Control estimates that the number of times people were in the hospital with sepsis increased from 621,000 in the year 2000 to 1,141,000 in 2008.

Federal Health Minister of Germany, Hermann Gröhe, has called on his political colleagues around the world to join in the appeal to the WHA, stating publicly: ”Prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of sepsis will not only save millions of lives around the world, but will also contribute to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular reducing maternal and neonatal mortality rates as well as strengthening health care systems.”

For its part, the Global Sepsis Alliance is calling on every country to establish a national action plan and achieve a number of goals by 2020, including reducing the incidence of sepsis by 20 percent, by promoting practices of good general hygiene and hand washing, clean obstetric care, improvements in sanitation, nutrition and delivery of clean water, and through vaccination programs for at-risk patient populations in resource poor areas.

About The Patient Safety Movement Foundation

More than 3,000,000 people worldwide, including 200,000 people in the US, die every year in hospitals in ways that could have been prevented. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation was established through the support of the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation, and Competition in Healthcare, to reduce the number of preventable deaths to 0 by 2020 (0X2020) in the US and dramatically worldwide. Improving patient safety will require a collaborative effort from all stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, medical technology companies, government, employers, and private payers. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation works with all stakeholders to address the problems and solutions of patient safety. The Foundation also convenes the annual World Patient Safety, Science and Technology summit. The Summit presents specific, actionable solutions to meet patient safety challenges, encouraging medical technology companies to share the data for which their products are purchased, and asking hospitals to make commitments to implement Actionable Patient Safety Solutions. Visit www.patientsafetymovement.org.

About Global Sepsis Alliance

Sepsis is one of the most underestimated health risks. It affects more than 30 million people worldwide each year; for 6 to 8 million of them with a fatal outcome. Surviving patients often suffer for years from late complications. This is all the more disturbing as sepsis incidence could be considerably reduced by some simple preventive measures such as vaccination and improved adherence to hygiene standards, early recognition and optimized treatment. The main danger of sepsis results from a lack of knowledge about it. The founding members of the Global Sepsis Alliance (GSA) have recognized the need to elevate public, philanthropic and governmental awareness and understanding of sepsis and to accelerate collaboration among researchers, clinicians, associated working groups and those dedicated to supporting them. For this reason, they initiated the Global Sepsis Alliance in 2010. Together with supporting organizations from across the globe, we are united in one common goal: Stop sepsis - save lives! Visit global-sepsis-alliance.org.

@0x2020 #patientsafety #0x2020 #Sepsis, #wsd16 #wsc16

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Website: http://patientsafetymovement.org/

Contact

Patient Safety Movement Foundation
Irene Paigah
858-859-7001
irene@paigah.com

World Sepsis Congress
Kathryn Hendrick
Director, Communications
416-277-6281
hendrickkathryn@gmail.com