Kristen Degelman thought she just had the flu. She and her daughter had gone on vacation, and when they came home, both tested positive. But after five days on medication, her daughter felt fine. Kristen didn’t.
A nurse practitioner in the emergency department at St. Dominic, Kristen knew what sepsis looked like — or at least she thought she did. Her blood pressure was normal. Her heart rate was slightly elevated but not unusual for someone who wasn’t feeling well. Still, something felt off.
“I thought I was just dehydrated,” she says. “I didn’t have any obvious signs of sepsis that I would’ve thought to myself, ‘Hey, this could be a problem.’ I thought, ‘I’ll go in, get some fluids, and be back at work the next day.’”
What happened next, she says, changed everything. Within minutes of her arrival, a nurse sent off a new sepsis blood test called Intellisep, which evaluates a patient’s immune response to infection. Within 10 minutes, it gives a simple result — band one, two or three — that helps providers know whether the patient is showing signs of sepsis, even before other tests come back.
“They did the IntelliSep test right away, and the results came back very quickly,” Kristen says. “And I was a band three.”
That result meant she was in early sepsis and needed immediate treatment. The diagnosis fast-tracked her to treatment and, she believes, may have saved her life.
Seeing What Sepsis Hides
Sepsis can be hard to spot. In its early stages, it doesn’t always present with obvious signs. In the past, St. Dominic’s emergency department often relied on a combination of clinical assessments, time-consuming lab results and clinical judgment to determine whether a patient might be septic.
“Before IntelliSep, it was very challenging to manage sepsis,” says Nikki Harrison, an emergency department nurse at St. Dominic’s. “We had multiple labs that we had to draw. It can take hours to get those labs back. You don’t know if a patient is septic in the waiting room. You have to go off your assessment, your gut instinct.”
That uncertainty meant patients like Kristen could have ended up waiting, something that can be dangerous when every minute counts. But IntelliSep changed that equation. The test analyzes how white blood cells behave under stress and classifies patients into three risk bands — from one being low/no risk to three being high risk of sepsis. Most importantly the result comes back in about 10 minutes as opposed to the hours that some lab tests take to run.
For Kristen, it meant she didn’t have to wait in the emergency department lobby while her condition quietly worsened. She was quickly brought back for fluids, antibiotics and further monitoring.
A Shift in Practice and Perspective
Dr. Bradley Burns, medical director of the emergency department at St. Dominic, says IntelliSep has become more than just a test. It’s now the foundation of their sepsis response.
“We’ve basically built a process around IntelliSep that helps us identify septic patients faster so we can deliver treatment faster,” he explains.
For physicians like Dr. Burns, the test has provided something many clinicians crave — confidence. Especially in cases where patients, like Kristen, don’t “look” septic.
In fact, the emergency department has empowered nurses at triage to order the test based on their clinical judgment. If a patient seems off, even if they don’t meet standard sepsis criteria, the nurse can request an IntelliSep test. That’s something Nikki now does routinely.
“I don’t want to miss somebody in that waiting room that could be septic and I’ve let them sit out there for hours without knowing,” she says. “It reassures me that I can draw this lab and I know within minutes.”
Faster Answers, Smarter Care
The value of IntelliSep extends beyond early diagnosis. It’s also helping the St. Dominic team use resources more efficiently. Patients classified as band one may not need intensive workups or hospital admission. That means fewer unnecessary blood cultures and antibiotics, less strain on staff and patients, and quicker care.
Kristen experienced that speed firsthand. From the moment her test results came in, the ER team moved quickly to begin her care. She didn’t have to wait hours for answers or wonder if anyone understood the urgency of her symptoms.
“It really streamlined my experience,” she says. “I had a diagnosis, I had a treatment plan and I didn’t have to sit in the ER waiting hours and hours. It was done within minutes.”
Helping Patients Understand and Engage
One of the most powerful aspects of IntelliSep is how it helps bridge communication between clinicians and patients. For many people, the idea of sepsis is unfamiliar. Nikki says she often explains it as “an infection in your blood” and uses the test results to help patients and families understand the seriousness of the condition.
When someone’s loved one is showing signs of severe sepsis, a band one, two or three classification gives them something concrete to grasp. Instead of relying on vague medical explanations or gut feelings, the team can point to a definitive result. That makes a difference, especially in high-stress moments. Families can see why the nurses and doctors are acting quickly, and they trust the care more because they understand what’s happening.
It also offers a way to talk to patients not just about what’s happening, but why certain steps — hospital admission, antibiotics, fluids — are necessary. That transparency helps patients feel more involved in their own care.
“It gives us all something a little more tangible than just a gut,” Dr. Burns says. “It gives me one more talking point with the patient as far as, ‘No, you really do need to stay, and we really do need to do all of these tests and treatments.’”
“It made a big difference in my care,” says Kristen, who’s been on both sides of the hospital bed. “It gave the nurses and the physicians a very clear idea of what the diagnosis was and how to treat it.
“Had [the Intellisep test] not happened, I feel like my hospital stay could have been a lot longer. It could have not turned out as well as it did. I may have had some lasting effects from the hospitalization and how sick I was. But fortunately, the test was run. We got the results quick, and what could have been a lot worse ended up in a five-day hospital stay, getting to go home and back to work the next week.”
Positioning St. Dominic as a Leader in Sepsis Care
As one of the few hospitals in nation using IntelliSep, St. Dominic has carved out a role as a leader in emergency care innovation. For the emergency department team, it’s not just about being first, it’s about being better.
Dr. Burns sees the test as part of a larger shift toward proactive, personalized emergency care — one that empowers nurses, informs physicians and builds trust with patients.
“We identify [cardiac] stimulus with an EKG. We identify strokes with a CTA. And now we have a blood test that can help us identify sepsis sooner,” he says.
Thanks to IntelliSep, patients who once might have slipped through the cracks are now identified earlier and treated faster.
“IntelliSep has saved a lot of people’s lives just by getting treatment started sooner. That’s the biggest thing,” Nikki says. “Before, we could not start treatment in the waiting room because we didn’t know. You did all these tests, but you still didn’t have a definitive lab result that tells you, ‘Hey, they are septic.’ And now you do. That’s a blessing.”
