Sepsis 3 from the perspective of clinicians and quality improvement initiatives

The publication of the Sepsis-3 definitions resulted in a number of concerns related to its impact on the work of QI initiatives that focus on early identification and treatment of sepsis and prompted statements by the GSA, HYPERLINK “http://www.global-sepsis-alliance.org“www.global-sepsis-alliance.org and the Surviving Sepsis campaign (SSC), www.survivingsepsis.org. [...]in this document we aim to assess the new sepsis definitions [1] in the context of quality improvement initiatives. The current proposition adds burden to the data collection as well as for the bedside healthcare workers, since the complexity of calculating variations in six different organ dysfunction systems is high. [...]having SOFA variation as a definition also reduces its usefulness in the measurement burden, one of the relevant domains used to define usefulness of disease definitions. The broad definition of sepsis, the presence of a life threating organ dysfunction, should remain the basis of all QI initiatives. [...]screening for early identification and treatment of patients with sepsis (formerly called severe sepsis) should continue essentially as previously recommended by SSC and seek the presence of any organ dysfunction. [...]their statements were not sufficient to clarify how the new definitions can be used at bedside. [...]our proposal is that an additional statement by the Sepsis 3 authors be issued in order to clarify some of these points as stated below.