Kaye Stewart has been a pediatric nurse for 28 years, but even she wasn’t immune to a dangerous syndrome that could have killed her. 

When Stewart started experiencing back pain in January 2008, she thought it was because of the uncomfortable shoes she had been wearing, or due to some heavy lifting. When the pain got worse, and the over-the-counter painkillers weren’t working, she called her husband and told him he needed to take her to the emergency room when he got off work. Two hours before her husband was due home from work, the pain became unbearable, and she called 911.

Stewart was rushed to the hospital, where she was told she had a very large kidney stone that was completely blocking her kidney. She was scheduled for surgery that day to have the kidney stone broken apart. The procedure was simple one, and Stewart was told she would be sent home a few hours later. But while she was in recovery, she developed a fever and her blood pressure became dangerously low. It turned out that once the kidney stone had been broken apart, the large quantity of built-up urine in her system triggered the onset of a kidney infection that developed into sepsis, a deadly syndrome that could have killed her.

“It’s easy to miss the warning indicators for sepsis because they’re easily confused with other ailments,” said Dr. Karen Hopper, Methodist North Hospital Chief Medical Office, a seven-hospital health system in Memphis. “There’s a crucial six hour window to recognize and halt the sepsis cascade that can potentially lead to death.”

Hospital leadership at Methodist Le Bonheur has taken action to ensure its doctors and nurses don’t miss the early warning signs for sepsis. A team of doctors, nurses, and IT staff developed an electronic alert within the Cerner Millennium® electronic medical record system that immediately alerts a patient’s care team when the patient exhibits two or more signs of sepsis. The alert notifies caregivers to initiate a sepsis treatment protocol to prevent the syndrome from worsening. Since the alert was put into place in 2007, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has caught more than 4,000 cases of sepsis in its four adult hospitals, potentially saving the lives of each of those 4,000 patients.

“The sepsis alert tool within the Cerner Millennium electronic medical record helped us prevent Kaye Stewart from going into septic shock, and quite likely saved her life,” said Dr. Franc Fenaughty, the medical director of emergency services Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital where Stewart was treated. “Because we caught the signs quickly, we were able to stop this life-threatening condition in its tracks before it could harm her.”

A year after being admitted to the hospital for kidney stone, Stewart reflects on what could have happened to her had Methodist not had the sepsis alerting system in place.

“I probably would have died if the sepsis alert hadn’t been in place,” Stewart said. “If I would have gone home after the surgery, my condition would have worsened. I would have been very sick and they would have had to have brought me back to the hospital. But this time, I wouldn’t have left the hospital alive. I try not to think too much about the ‘what if.’”

Watch the Fox 13 News story on how our new sepsis alert is saving lives.