Opening Remarks and Keynote: Elevating Sepsis Care Together: A Joint Commission Perspective
Recorded On: 09/17/2026
Description:
This session was part of Sepsis Alliance Summit 2026
During these opening remarks, Maxine Tatlonghari, a sepsis survivor, will share her personal experience with sepsis and how she uses stories and connections to support other sepsis survivors.
Following Opening Remarks, this keynote offers a national perspective on advancing sepsis care through shared standards, organizational commitment, and continuous quality improvement. Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at The Joint Commission, will share how healthcare organizations can use accreditation and certification frameworks to strengthen sepsis programs, promote consistent practices, and support safer, higher-quality care. Attendees will gain insight into The Joint Commission’s approach to sepsis certification and the opportunities it creates for interdisciplinary teams to evaluate performance, address gaps, and work collectively toward better patient outcomes.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the session, the learner should be able to:
- Describe how The Joint Commission accredits and certifies healthcare safety and quality.
- List the elements of The Joint Commission sepsis certification.
Target Audience:
Nurses, advanced practice providers, physicians, emergency responders, pharmacists, medical technologists, respiratory therapists, physical/occupational therapists, infection prevention specialists, data/quality specialists, and more.
Maxine Tatlonghari
Sepsis Survivor and Advocate
Maxine Tatlonghari is a Los Angeles-based development and marketing executive, writer, and speaker with 25+ years of impact raising critical funds and telling powerful stories for national health organizations. In July 2025, Maxine survived sepsis and multiple organ failure, including a month-long coma, followed by months of recovery and rehabilitation. She writes and speaks publicly about her experience — not as a cautionary tale, but as a firsthand account of what survival actually asks of a patient, a body, and the people who show up for you.
Maxine is the founder of Kintsugi Diaries, a growing Substack, where fellow survivors and people connect through long-form writing and shared story, named for the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. She's carried this philosophy since living in Tokyo, shaping how she thinks about recovery itself. She brings the same instinct for story and connection to today's event, helping healthcare professionals see sepsis survival through the eyes of the person who lived it.
Arjun Srinivasan, MD
Deputy Chief Medical Officer
The Joint Commission Enterprise
Arjun Srinivasan, MD, is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at The Joint Commission Enterprise. In this role, Dr. Srinivasan supports the organization’s mission to advance healthcare quality and patient safety worldwide, bringing deep expertise in infectious diseases, outbreak response, antimicrobial resistance, and hospital improvement initiatives.
Dr. Srinivasan previously spent 22 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, where he led national efforts to prevent healthcare-associated infections and advance antimicrobial stewardship. His leadership played a central role in establishing antibiotic stewardship programs across U.S. hospitals.
Before joining the CDC, Dr. Srinivasan served on the faculty at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was the Associate Hospital Epidemiologist and the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Stewardship Program.
A board-certified infectious diseases physician, Dr. Srinivasan is an adjunct faculty member in the Infectious Diseases Division at Emory University. He has authored more than 150 peer‑reviewed publications and is recognized nationally for his contributions to improving infection prevention and responsible antibiotic use.
Dr. Srinivasan earned his undergraduate degree from Davidson College and his medical degree from Vanderbilt University. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Infectious Diseases at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.