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10 years ago, America's health care community dealt heart attacks with gusto by harnessing the power of research and data to make sure that every patient got the best possible care, and it worked. According to reports, the death rates for heart attack have dropped. 

Now, researchers say, it's time to do the same for sepsis as well. Sepsis affects more hospital patients, and leads to more hospital costs than any other diagnosis. 

Sepsis is caused a by a body-wide-over-reaction to any kind of infection. It can also lead to damage of vital organs. If statistics are to be believed, sepsis kills one in every six people diagnosed with it. 

More people die from sepsis than die from prostate cancer, breast cancer and AIDS combined, the press release adds. 

"Now's the time to focus on quality improvement in sepsis, because it has become one of the most important conditions in hospitals, it attacks more and more patients, and we can learn from the years of work in other conditions," says Colin Cooke, M.D., M.Sc., M.S., a U-M critical care physician who authored the article. "We believe that by creating a framework for quality improvement in sepsis care that takes into account evolving knowledge of this condition, we can improve patients' odds of survival and reduce variation in care."

Researchers presented their viewpoints in the Journal of the American Medical Association.