Sepsis in emergency medicine toolkit

Recommendation

• Adopt and implement an evidence-based screening tool and treatment protocol for pediatric patients in emergency departments that treat children.

Rationale

• More than 75,000 children are treated annually for sepsis in the US, with state mortality rates ranging from 10 to 20 percent.
• Children with sepsis present differently from adults.
• Most children go to general hospitals for emergency care.

Tools

• Pediatric septic shock trigger tool
• Pediatric septic shock guidelines
• Empiric antimicrobial treatment recommendations for pediatric severe sepsis
• Surviving Sepsis Campaign pediatric sepsis guidelines

Best practices

• Implementing sepsis protocols for all patients regardless of age (Emerson Hospital, Concord)
• Implementing an EHR-embedded electronic pediatric sepsis screening algorithm (Boston Children's Hospital, Boston)