Case Study: Yavapai Regional Medical Center achieves faster sepsis detection and improved clinician workflow with Cerner

Yavapai Regional Medical Center improves quality reporting for sepsis cases

Yavapai Regional Medical Center (YRMC), a 206‑bed nonprofit community health system in Prescott, Arizona and a Cerner ITWorks client, faced a new CMS sepsis-quality measure mandate (Oct 2015) that required reliable sepsis data capture and a documented “time zero.” Previously, physicians recorded time zero in free-text notes, forcing manual abstraction and creating workflow inefficiencies.

YRMC partnered with Cerner’s quality reporting team to deploy eQualityCheck and the St. John Sepsis agent, which triggers open‑chart alerts and a PowerForm for discrete sepsis documentation. Elbow-to-elbow training with a sepsis physician champion and super users drove adoption; repeat lactate collection rose from 50% to 85%, physician documentation of suspected infection increased 210%, and sepsis PowerPlan compliance improved by 32%, streamlining workflow and supporting better sepsis management.

Yavapai Regional Medical Center

Vickie Jones

Clinical Quality Analyst