Do Sepsis Alerts Help?

A great hope of moving from paper to electronic health records (EHRs) is that health data could be scanned in real-time, alerting the care team of potential gaps in care before untoward consequences occur. While leveraging this type of case-specific clinical decision support could dramatically improve the quality and consistency of health care delivery, reality has thus far fallen far short of expectation. Sepsis serves as an illustrative example.