An Interprofessional Process to Improve Early Identification and Treatment for Sepsis

The course of sepsis is rapid. Patient outcomes improve when sepsis is diagnosed and treated quickly. The clinical goals of the evidence-based bundled strategies from the International consortium Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) include optimizing timeliness in the delivery of care and creating a continuum for sepsis management that runs from the emergency department (ED) to the acute and critical care settings. Successful implementation of processes that integrate sepsis bundles can improve patient mortality and hospital costs. Improving interprofessional education and collaboration are necessary to facilitate the effective use of bundled strategies. An intervention that included interprofessional education resulted in a statistically significant difference between the three phases studied. There was a statistically significant improvement between the phases for lactate completion chi(2) = 16.908 (p < .01) after education. Frequency of blood cultures being obtained before antibiotic administration was nearing statistical significance (p < .054). There was an improvement in time to antibiotic administration between phase 2 (182.09 mean average minutes, SD = 234.06) and phase 3 (91.62 mean average minutes, SD = 167.99).