Eight professional societies and the Sepsis Alliance published a position paper Aug. 25 in Clinical Infectious Diseases, outlining strategies for hospitals to improve sepsis outcomes.
Four things to know:
1. The Infectious Diseases Society of America spearheaded the effort, developing a multidisciplinary panel of experts from the following groups to create the evidence-informed recommendations:
- American College of Emergency Physicians
- American Society for Microbiology
- American Thoracic Society
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society
- Society of Critical Care Medicine
- Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America
- Society of Hospital Medicine
- Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists
- Sepsis Alliance
2. The recommendations span six domains: diagnostic testing and pathogen detection, antimicrobial management, surveillance and performance measurement, adjunctive therapies, hospital infrastructure and organizational support, and infection prevention.
3. Specific strategies include rapid molecular testing of positive blood cultures paired with antimicrobial stewardship support, workflow changes to ensure immediate antibiotic therapy for septic shock patients, corticosteroid protocols for severe community-acquired pneumonia, electronic sepsis surveillance and standardized daily toothbrushing to reduce hospital-acquired pneumonia.
4. The paper also flags emerging technologies, including next-generation diagnostics and AI-enabled clinical decision support, that could further improve sepsis care but require additional validation before widespread adoption.
View the full paper here.
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