A sepsis response team did not have a positive effect on mortality or organ dysfunction in septic patients, compared with standard treatment by a primary care team, according to a study abstract scheduled to be presented at CHEST 2017.
The study covers a retrospective analysis of 517 septic patients in an inpatient ward at a tertiary care academic center from June 2014 until December 2016. Of this group, 302 were treated by a sepsis response team, while the others were treated by the normal primary care team.Compared with the primary care team, the sepsis team was more likely to intervene on patients with a quick Sepsis-Related Organ Failure Assessment score greater than 1 (33.8% vs. 22.8%), change or initiate antibiotics within 3 hours (64.6% vs. 37.2%), and obtain blood cultures on time (66.4% vs 45.2%). An additional difference between the two groups was that the sepsis team had better compliance with the 3-hour bundle (15.2% vs 8.4%).
Despite the sepsis team’s higher level of compliance with certain protocols, the combined outcome measure of mortality and organ dysfunction within 28 days was not significantly higher for patients treated by the sepsis team (11.3% vs. 9.8%; P = .6). In fact, there was at least one downside to being treated by the sepsis team, which was having a 14% longer hospital stay.
Chhaya Patel, MD, is scheduled to present the abstract on Sun., Oct. 29th, at 2:30-2:45 p.m. in Convention Center – 602B. This research is part of the Sepsis & Septic Shock session at the CHEST annual meeting, which will run from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.