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 of Critical Care by Rich et al.
Due to frequent “alert fatigue” from general sepsis alerts in ICUs, a new ICU-specific alert was developed to target patients most likely to experience severe sepsis complications.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study investigating new ICU sepsis alerts using modified SIRS criteria to identify patients who were critically ill at high risk for sepsis complications.
They involved patients aged 18 or older, admitted to critical care, and with at least one sepsis alert(January 1 and February 29, 2020). Patients flagged by the sepsis alert met at least two modified systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria (white blood cell count <4,000/μL or >12,000/μL; body temperature <36 °C or >38.3 °C; heart rate >110/min; respiratory rate >21/min), with at least one of the criteria being white blood cell count or body temperature.
The results showed that of the 128 alerts assessed, the positive predictive value stood at 72%. Among 713 patients admitted to critical care without a sepsis alert, 7 were diagnosed with sepsis. The ICU sepsis alert demonstrated a negative predictive value of 99%, a sensitivity of 92.9%, and a specificity of 95.1%.
Investigators found that a new ICU sepsis alert based on modified SIRS criteria successfully identified sepsis in patients with medical critical illness.
