Patient-centered evaluation of the effectiveness of sepsis alert in the intensive care unit in critical medical cases

The following is a summary of “Evaluation of an Intensive Care Unit Sepsis Alert in Critically Ill Medical Patients,” published in the May 2024 issue Intensive care by Rich et al.

Due to frequent “alert fatigue” due to general sepsis alerts in intensive care units, a new intensive care unit-specific alert has been developed to target patients most likely to experience severe sepsis complications.

Researchers conducted a retrospective study examining new sepsis alerts in the intensive care unit using modified SIRS criteria to identify critically ill patients at high risk for sepsis complications.

Patients aged 18 and over who were admitted to the intensive care unit and had at least one sepsis warning were affected (January 1 and February 29, 2020). Patients reported by the sepsis alert met at least two criteria for modified systemic inflammatory response syndrome (white blood cell count <4.000/μl oder >12,000/μl; Body temperature <36). ^°C or >38.3 ^°C; heart rate >110/min; Respiratory rate >21/min), where at least one of the criteria is white blood cell count or body temperature.

The results showed that the positive predictive value of the 128 alerts evaluated was 72%. Of 713 patients admitted to the intensive care unit without warning of sepsis, 7 were diagnosed with sepsis. The sepsis alert in the intensive care unit showed a negative predictive value of 99%, a sensitivity of 92.9% and a specificity of 95.1%.

Researchers found that a new ICU sepsis alert based on modified SIRS criteria was able to successfully identify sepsis in patients with medically critical illness.

Source: aacnjournals.org/ajcconline/article-abstract/33/3/212/32427/Evaluation-of-an-Intensive-Care-Unit-Sepsis-Alert