Sepsis now a priority: a quality improvement initiative for early sepsis recognition and care

To develop a triage-based screening algorithm and treatment order-sets aimed at improving the quality of care of all patients with sepsis presenting to our emergency department (ED).

Retrospective cohort study conducted during a pre-intervention period from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011 and a post-intervention period from 1 September 2014 to 30 April 2015.

A large teaching hospital located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with a 35-bed ED.

All patients meeting pre-specified sepsis criteria during the ED encounter.

Process of care measures included time to assessment by emergency physician, lactate measurement, blood culture collection, fluid and antibiotic administration. Intensive care unit (ICU) outcomes including admissions, length of stay (LOS) and deaths were reviewed.

There were 346 patients pre-intervention, and 270 patients post-intervention. We significantly improved all process measures including mean time to antibiotics by 60 min (P = 0.003) and proportion of patients receiving fluid resuscitation (64.7% vs. 94.4%, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in the number of patients admitted to ICU (P = 0.14). The median ICU LOS was shorter in the post-intervention group [2.0 days (interquartile range (IQR) 1.0-4.5 days) vs. 5.0 days (IQR 1.5-10.8 days), P = 0.04], and there was no difference in in-hospital mortality between groups (P = 0.27).

We have demonstrated that a triage-based sepsis screening tool results in expedited and consistent delivery of care, with a significant improvement in initial resuscitation measures.