By: Stephanie Hernandez-Avina, Marketing and Communications Specialist 

What is your organization’s mission? 
Sepsis Alliance’s mission is to save lives and reduce suffering by educating the public and leading an alliance of patients, health care professionals, and partners committed to preventing and curing sepsis. 
 
Through Sepsis.org, Sepsis Alliance Institute, Sepsis Alliance Voices, and Sepsis Alliance Connect, Sepsis Alliance is providing health care professionals, the general public, those impacted by sepsis, and lawmakers with the education, support, and advocacy to help save lives and limbs from sepsis. 

What is sepsis? 
Sepsis is a life-threatening emergency that happens when your body’s response to an infection damages vital organs and, often, causes death. In other words, it’s your body’s overactive and toxic response to an infection. Like strokes or heart attacks, sepsis is a medical emergency that requires rapid diagnosis and treatment. 

Sepsis kills 350,000 adults in the U.S. each year and is the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals.  

Learn more about sepsis, including the signs and symptoms to watch for, at Sepsis.org.  

Tell us about the communities you serve. 
Sepsis can affect anyone, so our work reaches a broad and diverse community. We serve people at risk for sepsis, patients and their loved ones, sepsis survivors and caregivers, health care professionals, researchers, policymakers, and advocates. 

We also work closely with communities that have been disproportionately affected by sepsis and with health systems and organizations working to improve sepsis care, with a focus on those living with chronic disease given their increased vulnerability to infections and sepsis. A key part of our work is bringing together these different perspectives, including the lived experiences of patients and families, to help create meaningful change. 

What are your organization’s main programs or issue areas you focus on? 
Our work centers on several interconnected areas: public awareness and education, health care professional education, improving the quality of sepsis care, patient and survivor support, advocacy and policy, and research and innovation. 

Through programs such as Sepsis Awareness Month, Sepsis Alliance Connect, professional education and events, advocacy initiatives, and resources for patients and families, we work to ensure that more people recognize sepsis early and know what action to take. We also elevate survivor and caregiver voices, support efforts to improve diagnosis and treatment, and advocate for changes that can improve outcomes and reduce the long-term impact of sepsis. 

How does your work relate to the National Health Council’s mission and the work of our members? 
Sepsis Alliance’s work closely aligns with the National Health Council’s focus on advancing patient-centered health policy and improving the lives of people living with serious health conditions. 

Sepsis is not only a medical emergency; it can have lasting physical, emotional, and financial effects on patients and loved ones. Our work brings together patients, survivors, caregivers, health care professionals, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to address these challenges. We share the National Health Council’s commitment to elevating the patient voice, advancing meaningful health policy, and ensuring that the experiences of people affected by serious health conditions help shape the systems and solutions intended to serve them. 

What would people be surprised to know about your organization? 
People may be surprised to learn just how broad the impact of sepsis is and how many different areas Sepsis Alliance touches. While awareness is a major part of our work, we are much more than an awareness organization. We work across education, advocacy, research, health care quality improvement, patient and survivor support, and policy. 

We also bring together people who may not otherwise have an opportunity to work side by side, from sepsis survivors and family members to nurses, physicians, researchers, health systems, policymakers, and industry partners. That collaboration is essential to addressing sepsis from every angle. 

Is there an accomplishment your organization is most proud of? 
One accomplishment we’re especially proud of is helping to make sepsis a more visible and recognized public health issue while building a community around those affected by it. Awareness of the term sepsis has jumped from 19% when Sepsis Alliance was founded to 78% in 2026, but there is still a lot of work to do to help people better recognize the signs and symptoms to seek emergency care.  

Over the past 20 years, Sepsis Alliance has grown from an organization focused primarily on raising awareness into the leading organization working across awareness, education, advocacy, health care improvement, research, and survivor support. We’re particularly proud of the relationships we’ve built with survivors, families, health care professionals, researchers, policymakers, and other organizations. Those partnerships have helped move sepsis from a relatively unknown condition to an issue that is increasingly recognized as a medical and public health priority. 

Sepsis Alliance is a new member of the National Health Council. For more information on NHC membership, please email membership@nhcouncil.org.