Rockville, Md. – October 28, 2026 -- The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is committing $7.5 million over three years to a sepsis quality improvement partnership with the Indian Health Service (IHS), covering IHS emergency care facilities.
Initiative targets early sepsis identification in IHS emergency care
The program will strengthen early identification and management of sepsis. It is designed around the needs, resources, cultural values and traditions of American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and follows three years of consultation with those communities.
IHS has identified a need to improve sepsis diagnosis and management across its facility network. Many of its sites are in rural or remote locations where access to specialty expertise and other resources may be limited.
AHRQ will build an educational toolkit and measure its impact at participating sites
The initiative will produce an educational toolkit for healthcare teams and assess its impact at participating facilities. Monitoring and evaluation will show what works and allow tools and approaches to be adjusted to the needs of participating sites.
AHRQ points to prior work including Evidence-Based Practice Centers, learning collaboratives, healthcare data resources developed with American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program.
AHRQ Director Roger D. Klein said the partnership puts evidence-based tools in the hands of frontline clinicians, so patients in Tribal communities receive the same standards-based sepsis response as elsewhere in the country. Kim Hartwig, IHS director of strategic initiatives, said the toolkit will be a sepsis clinical resource available IHS-wide.