The Surviving Sepsis Campaign: A Rush to Judgment

A new 1-hour sepsis care bundle was ill conceived and may have unintended negative consequences.

In April 2018, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) — an initiative sponsored by the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine — issued guidelines that promote adherence to an “Hour-1 Bundle” for patients with suspected sepsis (Intensive Care Med 2018; 44:925). The bundle consists of five interventions to be initiated within 1 hour of the “time of triage in the emergency department or, if referred from another care location, from the earliest chart annotation consistent with all elements of sepsis (formerly severe sepsis) or septic shock ascertained through chart review.” The interventions are as follows:

Measure the lactate level; remeasure if >2 mmol/L.
Obtain blood cultures before giving antibioti…

Authors

Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education

Grant/Research SupportAgency for Healthcare Research and Quality; CDC; NIH–National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences; NIH–National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); NIH–NIAID–Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group; Merck; Pfizer; Boehringer-Ingelheim; Shire; Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Novartis; bioMérieux; Siemens; Rapid Pathogen Screening; Magnolia; Stago; Innovative Biosensors; Molecular Detection, Inc.; Dyax Corp.; Trius Pharmaceuticals

Daniel J. Pallin, MD, MPH

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardPortola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Speaker’s BureauPeerView Institute for Medical Education

Rory Spiegel, MD

The Surviving Sepsis Campaign: A Rush to Judgment

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