Pediatrics introduce the new protocol to improve the diagnoses of sepsis in children patients. The new sepsis diagnosis protocol is able to reduce the missed diagnosis by 76 percent.
Researchers from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) have developed a new sepsis diagnosis protocol for the child patient, according to the news release from ACEP. The protocol uses an electronic sepsis alert system that combine the vital signs of patient, associated risks factor and the judgement from physicians. This protocol is used to identify children in the pediatric emergency department with severe sepsis.
The result of the research has been published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, available online since Friday, June. 2. This new sepsis diagnosis protocol is able to reduce the missed diagnosis by 76 percent according to the lead author of the research, the attending physicians in the Division of Emergency Medicine and a faculty member at the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness of the Children Hospital of Philadelphia, Fran Balamuth, MD, Ph.D.
"Sepsis is a killer and notoriously difficult to identify accurately in children, which is why this alert is so promising," Balamuth said about the new sepsis diagnosis protocol. "This alert, especially with the inclusion of physician judgment, gets us much closer to catching most of those very sick children and treating them quickly.”
Sepsis is a condition when an immune system in human body responds to the bacterial or other sources of infection, with usually indicated by fever, increased heart rate, and breathing rate. Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that could lead to a shock and death, especially for children patient. Therefore, a new sepsis diagnosis protocol is necessary to monitor the patient's condition.
The new sepsis diagnosis protocol consists of two stages of the alert system, implemented in the electronic health record (EHR). The first stage is triggered when age-based elevated heart rate or hypotensive blood pressure is recorded, while the second stage will be alerted when the patient has a history of risk infection. In order to make this new sepsis diagnosis protocol goes well, the clinical identification is the critical factor for diagnosing the sepsis.
