Electronic Sepsis Screening Among Hospital Ward Patients—Reply
In Reply Health care systems vary considerably in terms of patient mix and clinical service structure. Therefore, it is unsurprising to observe wide variations in rapid response team activations (5 to 56 per 1000 admissions) and in the proportions of cardiac arrests (1 to 48.6 per 1000 admissions) and hospital mortality (0.2 to 49.1 per 1000 admissions). The proportions reported in the SCREEN trial and those reported by Drs Bellomo and Jones fall within these ranges. The sepsis alert was designed to identify clinically deteriorating patients early before meeting the rapid response team activation criteria. This explains why alerts occurred more frequently than rapid response team activations (14.6% compared with 4.8%). Therefore, rapid response teams should not be considered a replacement for systems for early identification of sepsis.
In Reply Health care systems vary considerably in terms of patient mix and clinical service structure. Therefore, it is unsurprising to observe wide variations in rapid response team activations (5 to 56 per 1000 admissions) and in the proportions of cardiac arrests (1 to 48.6 per 1000 admissions) and hospital mortality (0.2 to 49.1 per 1000 admissions). The proportions reported in the SCREEN trial and those reported by Drs Bellomo and Jones fall within these ranges. The sepsis alert was designed to identify clinically deteriorating patients early before meeting the rapid response team activation criteria. This explains why alerts occurred more frequently than rapid response team activations (14.6% compared with 4.8%). Therefore, rapid response teams should not be considered a replacement for systems for early identification of sepsis.
