Awareness Into Action: Summa Health’s Progress in Ohio’s Fight Against Sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency that can become deadly quickly, making early recognition and treatment critical. More than 1.7 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with sepsis each year, and approximately 350,000 adults die from it annually.

For Michelle Evans, one of many health care professionals working to advance sepsis care across Ohio’s hospitals, improving those outcomes has been a five-year mission at Summa Health.

Before Evans arrived at Summa Health in 2021, neither her current position nor the sepsis program she now leads existed. Sepsis care efforts were already a concern within the health system, but quality leaders recognized the need for someone dedicated to pulling the information together, tracking performance across the system and educating staff.

Enter Evans.

She had previously worked in critical care, rapid response and hospitalist medicine — including serving as Aultman Hospital’s Intensivist Program Coordinator, where she developed her passion for sepsis care. In January 2021, Evans took on a role that was not only new for her, but for her entire health system: Sepsis Program Coordinator.

“I don’t know how anybody does it when they are focusing on anything else,” Evans told the Ohio Hospital Association. “And I thought, ‘Oh, good, I’m just focusing just on sepsis.’ But it’s so huge that it really does keep you busy. So I don’t know how hospitals do it without a dedicated person.”

At Summa Health, Evans oversees sepsis efforts across two main campuses and two freestanding emergency departments, tracks compliance and mortality, reviews hundreds of cases each month, provides education, works with emergency departments, and helps distribute data to physician and nursing champions. All that work has yielded tangible improvement. Evans said compliance rates have nearly doubled, from 44% to 85%, during her tenure. That’s compared to a national average of about 65%. In the most recent CMS Hospital Compare, Summa Health ranked in the top 9% nationally.

Summa Health is just one example of the work that’s happening within OHA member hospitals and health systems statewide.

For over a decade, Ohio hospitals have collaborated to improve outcomes and reduce costs specific to sepsis care. OHA’s statewide initiative to reduce Ohio’s sepsis mortality rate achieved a 13.5% reduction, saving 1,659 lives from 2023 through 2025. Ohio hospitals continue to focus on early sepsis recognition and early, appropriate clinical intervention.

For Evans at Summa Health, it’s the mortality rate that “keeps her up at night” however, she says it has improved.

“That’s what it’s all about,” she said. “You can get your compliance as high as you want, but if it’s not making a difference in the mortality, it doesn’t do any good.”

The results, Evans said, reinforce why hospitals need to continue investing in sepsis recognition and treatment. Sepsis can be deadly, but early recognition and treatment can make a difference.

“I just wish they understood how deadly this really is,” Evans said. “And not just that, but there are things that we can do to stop it. It’s something that can be treated if we treat it right away and recognize it right away. So we need to invest more time, energy, money into identifying it quickly, treating it quicker, getting the word out.”

Evans couldn’t have done it alone, though. She views herself as a coach, coordinating a team of physician and nursing champions who help drive accountability throughout Summa Health.

She said strong support from hospital leadership, along with the engagement of those clinical champions, has been critical to the program’s success.

“I have such great support all the way from nursing leadership to the upper crust,” she said. “The support is terrific. Any time I want to do something, they say, ‘Yep, do it.’ They give me free reign. … I think that’s a huge key.”

But Evans isn’t resting on her laurels. While she’s thrilled with the 85% compliance metric, she said she’s more concerned about the other 15%.  If she has 18 cases and two fallouts, she is more worried about the latter than the 16 cases done well.

Still, she’s keenly aware of the human impact behind the improved data, and she makes sure to praise the staff members who make it all possible.

“When I’m talking to my staff, I’m celebrating what they’re doing,” Evans said. “And then I get very emotional when I talk about how they’re sending patients home. I always say, ‘You’re sending your patients home with their loved ones.’ And that means so much.”

Along the way, Evans — a first-time sepsis program coordinator just five years ago — has “inadvertently” become a go-to subject matter expert; something she never expected. Evans has been a speaker on webinars and at events for organizations like OHA, CDC, Sepsis Alliance and the American Hospital Association. As a result, she said she frequently receives questions and words of advice.

Evans credited OHA with helping give her a platform to share her knowledge as well as aiding in her development as a coordinator and building Summa Health’s sepsis program. She also implored colleagues and patients to use the free resources available from organizations like OHA and the Sepsis Alliance, and to reach out and connect with their teams.

“OHA has worked with [Evans] and the Summa Health team for years, and we are incredibly proud of the great strides they have made in compliance rates and in reducing sepsis mortality,” said Kelsey Brown, associate vice president, OHA Strategic Programs. “Her passion for sepsis care is evident in her tireless campaign to raise awareness and educate clinical staff. She is always willing to share best practices with her peers across the state, and we thank her for the dedication and collaboration that helps make the statewide initiative successful and robust.”

Each September, Evans and the Summa Health team turn Sepsis Awareness Month into a systemwide effort to educate staff and recognize those making a difference in sepsis care. Now in its fifth year, the celebration includes a sepsis-focused grand rounds, recognition of physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses and residents through an annual sepsis excellence award, and Sepsis Alliance-sponsored awareness walks at the Akron and Barberton campuses.

Last year, about 100 people participated in the Akron walk, with another 25 to 30 joining at Barberton, allowing Evans to celebrate the staff whose work helps patients survive sepsis and return home to their families.

But for Evans, Sepsis Awareness Month is about more than a single event or campaign. She believes every hospital, regardless of its resources, can take steps to keep sepsis recognition and treatment top of mind.

“I think there’s something every hospital can do,” Evans said. “Whether they have the money or not, they can raise awareness. … Anything you can do to draw attention to sepsis month and let people know. Even just rounding and talking to the nurses about it, just anything you can do to draw awareness, both for the people coming in to the hospital and for your staff. Just do something.”