Emergency Physicians Are an Important Source of Variability in Delayed Antibiotics for Sepsis

Early administration of appropriate antibiotics very clearly decreases mortality for patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. The national core measure for sepsis requires antibiotic administration within 3 hours, while the Surviving Sepsis Campaign aims for <1 hour.

These authors measured median time from emergency department (ED) arrival to antibiotic administration for 40 different attending physicians at a single academic ED in Seattle. Each physician cared for at least five eligible patients; data were adjusted for several potential covariates (e.g., patient age, illness severity).

Of 421 patients, 74% received antibiotics within 3 hours. Among the 40 individual physicians, adjusted median time to antibiotic initiation varied from 7…