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October 12, 2025 16 mins

Joshua Geltman, MD, MBA, Physician Chair of the Sepsis Committee at Northern Westchester Hospital, discusses the seriousness of sepsis and its growing impact in inpatient care. He highlights current trends, the role of predictive analytics in improving early detection, and how data-driven approaches can drive meaningful change in sepsis management and patient outcomes.

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(00:00):
This is Scott Becker with the Beckers Healthcare
Podcast.
We're thrilled today to be joined by a
brilliant physician leader.
We're joined today by doctor Josh Geltman. Doctor
Geltman's both a doctor. He also went back
and did his MBA.
He he's so he's part of Northwell Health,
and he serves as the physician chair of

(00:20):
the sepsis committee
at one of their hospitals, Northern Westchester Hospital.
For those that aren't familiar, Northwell Health is
one of the largest health systems in the
country.
They're certainly the largest in New York State.
They're incredibly well led with tremendous leadership.
Doctor Geltman, can you take a moment and
talk about yourself and your career a little
bit and introduce yourself?

(00:41):
No problem. And thanks so much for having
me, Scott. This is a really phenomenal opportunity.
Happy to chat with you.
A little bit about me.
I,
am originally from St. Louis, Missouri. I did
my undergraduate
at MIT in Boston and stuck around Boston
and got a master's in
biomedical science and then subsequently an MBA with

(01:02):
a focus on nonprofit management and health care
management.
I did my,
medical my medical school, my medical training at
University of Missouri,
and then I made my way for all
of my postgraduate training
at,
at Northwell. So I'm born and bred Northwell
from internship
residency in my fellowship. I did internal medicine,
emergency medicine, and critical care medicine,

(01:25):
at North Shore and LIJ and then made
my way up to Northern Westchester Hospital after
that and have been,
working,
initially both in the ER and the ICU
and now as a full time intensivist.
And I
wear many administrative hats. One of the most
important ones,
for me is,
focusing on leading our sepsis efforts at our

(01:46):
hospital,
and,
trying to move the needle for us and
for the rest of the region.
And so you've had this incredible background,
both in MBA, have worked at the World
Bank,
WashU, which is really the pride and joy
academically
of,
of of Saint Louis, an amazing, amazing institution.

(02:07):
You've had so many different interesting roles and
also
did a thesis too. I mean, fascinating.
Talk a little bit about
sepsis
and how do we improve sepsis rates and
talk a little bit about the prevalence of
sepsis and and what it looks like.
So sepsis is one of those nagging problems
in health care. It's it's a very sticky
problem.

(02:28):
Sepsis in general, as I think people know,
is in the body's sort of overwhelming response,
to a nasty infection. Right? So you,
it can take a normal urinary tract infection
or pneumonia,
and then it can kind of ravage the
body as the body
releases all of these,
inflammatory
cytokines that,
kind of makes the immune system go crazy

(02:49):
and the patient can get very sick and
die,
in very short order, unfortunately, if not treated
if not recognized then treated quickly.
And so this has been the challenge for
health care systems across the country, across the
world,
so much so that, you know,
we've created things like the surviving sepsis campaign.
We've,
on a national level at the NIH,

(03:11):
tried to come up with and CMS tried
to come up with guidelines,
that can help everybody,
survive sepsis
in a way that we weren't able to,
in the decades prior.
And so
one thing about sepsis that makes it particularly
difficult to address is that it has this
insidious nature. Right? It kinda creeps up on

(03:32):
people. It's not like a stroke or a
heart attack. They can kinda
literally smack you right in front of your
face and say, oh, I've got crushing chest
pain. I probably have a heart attack. I
should go to the hospital or suddenly my
half my face doesn't move or or my
arm doesn't work anymore. I should get to
the hospital. I might be having a stroke.
Sepsis is a little bit more insidious. You
know? You're you're sick. You're not feeling great,
and then suddenly you start to get worse

(03:52):
and you ultimately fall off this cliff. And
so at both at home but also in
the hospital,
sepsis is a tricky thing to recognize as
it's developing.
And so,
you know, some of the thing we we're
taking a very multifaceted
approach, to sepsis within Northwell,
and specifically within our hospital. One of which
is

(04:12):
the first part is
really awareness at the community level, you know,
helping folks at home understand what sepsis is
and why it's important to come to the
hospital
and get checked out quickly because it could
really save lives.
Within the hospital, once they get within our
four walls, it's about empowering frontline staff to
recognize sepsis early.

(04:34):
And so both so recognize sepsis early,
treat it effectively, and treat it in a
timely manner. Those are our three buckets of
sepsis management that we really try,
to hammer home
across
our institution. And so
to manage sepsis
is kind of a quality improvement

(04:55):
guru's
dream problem to tackle. Right? So you have
to have systems level
approaches,
you know, creating a health care,
health informatics
infrastructure
to capture data effectively so that we can
use that data, but also empowering frontline staff
to raise the alarm when they think that

(05:17):
sepsis is happening and so that we can
really act quickly quickly as a team. Health
care is always a team based sport, but
especially with,
regards to sepsis in particular.
Taking a team based approach is really the
only way to succeed here.
Fantastic. What are some of the trends you're
watching in sepsis? Are are rates of sepsis
going up,

(05:38):
down,
the same? Is it is it really challenging
to try and change the trajectory of it?
What are you watching on it? So it
is. You know? I mean, there's
certainly
up to ten percent of all
seven anywhere from two and a half to
ten percent depending on what metrics you're looking
at of patients that develop sepsis,

(05:59):
and some up and some up to a
quarter can develop septic shock once they're in
the hospital. And so
the
and those rates
are have been challenging to move the needle
on nationally because
sepsis is such, again, a difficult
a difficult diagnosis to make,

(06:20):
especially as,
someone if someone isn't admitted with sepsis. So
the the evolving sepsis cases where you're not
admitted with sepsis, but then you subsequently
develop it during your hospitalization
are the most challenging cases
for any hospital to recognize and act on.
And so
trends
in the,
the development of sepsis

(06:41):
in the inpatient setting is really a big
thing to to
that most health care institutions
are focusing on and need to focus on,
because those are those
places where we can make a huge impact
on overall mortality
and morbidity if we can act quickly.
You know, I think using
the the biggest trend, I think, in health

(07:02):
care in general is AI and specifically
with regards
to sepsis Right. Could be a big,
a big player moving forward. Predictive analytics has
been the
been this big promise in health care for,
as you know, for, over a decade, if
not longer now.
And

(07:22):
certainly, you know, health care records like Epic,
have already developed their own predictive models,
to try to risk stratify these patients and
identify who's gonna get sicker, and who's not.
And I think that as you see AI
evolving in every space,
I think as it evolves in our health

(07:42):
care space, this is gonna be one of
the biggest targets for AI in health care,
to really move the quality improvement needle,
for patients.
Fantastic. When you look at sort of making
improvements,
what are you most focused on and excited
about currently?
Sort of where do you see the biggest
benefit coming, and and what are you most

(08:04):
excited about?
So I'm most excited about the human elements
of managing sepsis. I mentioned the team based
sport nature of, our approach to sepsis management.
As we've gone through all of our efforts
at our hospital, and I know this is
a pretty universal truth,
we can have all of the predictive analytics,

(08:24):
that we can purchase. However, if we don't
have the frontline staff that feel
empowered to recognize sepsis and then subsequently sound
the alarm and then subsequently
treat things in a timely manner and make
sure everything gets done as quickly as possible,
we're never gonna move the needle. And and
so we have while we've also, as a

(08:46):
hospital system, involved,
or, invested in benchmarking
software to help understand where our metrics sit
relative to our competitors in an apples to
apples kind of way, looking at expected mortality
and observed mortality. And we've been able to
move the needle quite a bit,
on our overall
mortality index, sepsis mortality index, things like that.

(09:07):
From the thousand foot view,
at the five foot view at the bedside,
we have invested heavily
in nursing education in,
our techs and our PCAs and educating them
on the signs of sepsis and all the
different,
diagnostic criteria for sepsis. We've created this,
code sepsis just like a code blue that

(09:28):
you hear overhead in a hospital,
where someone has gone into a cardiac arrest.
We created a code sepsis where a nurse
or a tech or a PCA
or a transporter
can call a code sepsis overhead and the
medical team will arrive at the bedside and
start treating the patient,
immediately with we've created
order sets within our medical records, so it'd

(09:49):
make it a click of a button and
all of the sepsis
orders that needs to go in the labs,
the,
the antibiotics,
the fluids, all get ordered simultaneously to make
sure that everything is being done as fast
as possible. And so it's really trying to
get to the source, get to the bedside,
and having the tools in place to support

(10:10):
them from an EHR standpoint and from an
analytics standpoint in the background.
Thank you. And and talk a little bit
about this, Josh, doctor Gilman.
You've had this great leadership career. You're sort
of the quintessential leader. You you're a chief
chief resident.
You in your residency,
you you did a tremendous amount of additional

(10:30):
research amongst a fasting number of subjects.
You're clearly a lifelong learner. What what advice
would you give to other emerging leaders, doctor
Geltman?
Well, thanks for the question, Scott. I think
that one of the things that I've always
tried to circle back to is

(10:53):
learning from the people around me. And so
I have
I've identified
key people in my life as mentors
every step of the way
and done my best
to listen
to their advice
as
unbiased as possible. And, really,

(11:14):
my career trajectory
would not be what it is if not
for my mentors along the way,
and not for the amazing advice that I've
gotten along the way. I think anyone that
is looking to get into a career in
health care, looking to with an eye towards
administrative roles in the future,
trying to find effective mentorship early on

(11:34):
can be,
just an incredible springboard to future opportunities
and
to,
to really open your eyes to the possibilities
that lay ahead.
I definitely would not be where I am
today without the the mentorship that I found
early on. And,
you know, what's great is you find one
mentor that you don't look for mentors necessarily

(11:57):
to have all the titles or have all
of the,
the connections. You know, you make your first
person that's
someone that's close to you that you really
trust, that knows you,
and they may have one person they can
introduce you to and then the snowball effect
can begin from there. So you don't have
to go to the CEO the first day
that you're at your institution and ask for

(12:17):
career advice,
though any good CEO will take that interview
and, take that appointment
and and which ours did with me at
one point, and I was very fortunate to
have that.
But that's not where I started. I started
with my co residents. I started with the
nurse manager. I started
with the charge nurse.

(12:37):
All these people that are outside of my
discipline to ask for career advice because they've
seen many people like me come through,
before me, and
I found some of the best career advice
from people outside of the discipline of medicine,
who have been able to help guide me
in my future.
Thank you very much. I'll ask you one
more question and if this is,

(12:59):
too complicated a question,
Doctor. Geltman,
feel free not to answer or if this
is too stressful or too complicated.
Okay.
Let me know if you're ready.
Alright. Hit me. Okay. So so so my
brother-in-law
is a Saint Louis native.
And what can I tell him about the
future of Saint Louis sports?

(13:21):
The Blues, the Cardinals, where is the future?
What does St. Louis Sports look like? Are
you optimistic? Are you pessimistic?
What do you see going forward?
You know, I would encourage him not to
sign a do not resuscitate order yet.
I think
that there
is life there to be had. I mean,

(13:42):
I like to think of the blue Stanley
Cup run as a phoenix rising from the
ashes, and I think that that
analogy
continues to serve us to this day. I
think there's a lot to look forward to,
moving forward. I've got,
there's clearly ownership that's not gonna desert us
like Stan Kroenke

(14:03):
did with the Rams, which was crushing as
a region. And I think,
no one's buying him a beer anytime soon.
I I think that,
I'm I feel heartened knowing that
Chicagoans like yourself will will
soon enough be in tears again,
even though it may not be,
this season. But, you know, it it may

(14:25):
be it's coming for sure. Well, it it
it's been a long time since we've had
great success in Chicago. My brother-in-law still cheers
for the Arizona Cardinals. Do you cheer for
the Arizona Cardinals or is that, is that
no? He's a he's a diehard Saint Louis
fan and follows them. Where's your head at
on that?
You know, I think, you know, I've just
been hurt too many times. You know, I've

(14:45):
become a student of the game, Scott. I
think when that when it comes to football,
I think I've had to to build up
a little emotional wall.
You know, I think that
the
even when we still had the old Busch
Stadium, it wasn't good enough for the for
the Cardinals. We had the, you know, our
current stadium, which wasn't good enough for the

(15:06):
Rams. You know, I'm okay with rooting for,
you know, people outside the region, and I
just wanna see a good game at this
point. I'm afraid I'm afraid of being hurt
again.
I hear you. I I I I I
feel you're hurt. I always love the rivalry
with the Blues, with the Cardinals,
and Chicago Blackhawks, and and and Cubs fans.

(15:27):
So it is what it is. We wish
you luck. We don't cheer against the Saint
Louis teams. We cheer for them,
unless they're playing the Cubs or Chicago teams.
Thank you for Josh, thank you so much
for joining us today. Just fantastic. Thank you
very, very much. It's really my pleasure, Scott.
Thanks. Have a great day.
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