Improving management of severe sepsis and uptake of sepsis resuscitation bundle in an acute setting

Severe sepsis still remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality, claiming between 36,000 to 64,000 lives annually in the UK, with a mortality rate of 35%.[1,2] The project aims to measure the management of severely septic patients in acute medical unit (AMU) in a district general hospital against best practice guidelines, before and after a set of interventions aiming to optimise patient management and outcomes. All new admissions who met the criteria for sepsis in AMU over a two week period were evaluated. Those who met the criteria for severe sepsis were further analysed. The criteria evaluated were time to first administration of oxygen, intravenous fluids, antibiotics, the taking of blood cultures, other relevant bloods tests (including lactate) and urine output monitoring. A re-audit was completed after the introduction of a set of interventions which included a “sepsis box.” A total of 32 patients (19 Males, 13 Females) were identified in the pre-intervention group. Twenty-two of these patients met the criteria for severe sepsis. Only 15 out of 32 (47%) had their lactate measured. Ten out of 22 (45%) received fluids within an hour. Twelve out of 22 (55%) had their blood culture sample taken after administration of antibiotics and only 12 out of 22 (55%) had antibiotics administrated within an hour of medical assessment. Post-intervention the results however improved dramatically. A total of 30 patients were identified in the post-intervention group (12 Males, 18 Females). Antibiotics administration within an hour went up by 22%. Lactate was performed in 26/30 (87%) patients presented with sepsis compared to 47% in the pre-intervention group. Similarly, identification of severe sepsis, and administration of intravenous fluids also showed improvement ultimately improving patient safety. Following the initial success, the trial was repeated over three months period, which showed sustainable improvement.