Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes

Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes

About

Children’s Hospital Association

Representing 220 children’s hospitals nationally, Children’s Hospital Association improves child health through innovation in the quality, cost, and delivery of care with our member hospitals.

Children’s hospitals are essential providers, setting the standard for the highest quality pediatric care while training the next generation of pediatricians. At Children’s Hospital Association, we’re here to bring children’s hospitals together.

Alongside our members, we champion policies, practices, and performance improvements that enable children’s hospitals to better serve children and families, focusing our efforts in areas of greatest impact. Learn more about the association.


The Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes Collaborative

The Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) collaborative was a multi-year, multi-site, and multi-disciplinary effort to decrease deaths from sepsis. Harnessing the power of shared learning among 66 children’s hospitals, the collaborative’s work saved an estimated 570 children’s lives.

A life-saving bundle of care

Evidence from the IPSO collaborative demonstrated that adherence to a specific bundle of care improves outcomes. Bundle compliance is associated with a 47.7% lower mortality among critical sepsis patients, 80.5% lower mortality among patients with suspected sepsis, and 20% fewer days spent in the hospital.

The bundle includes:

  • Formal sepsis recognition through a sepsis screen, huddle, or order set.
  • Fluid administration within 60 minutes of recognition.
  • Antibiotic administration within 180 minutes of recognition.

Advancing research and data for everyone

When the collaborative started in 2016, data on pediatric sepsis was scarce. There was little information, evidence, or best practice to guide children’s hospitals in caring for patients with sepsis.

Over its eight years, the collaborative built a data set containing over 100,000 pediatric sepsis episodes. Using this data, the collaborative published crucial findings charting the path to better outcomes for children with sepsis.

The collaborative’s work was presented at clinical and quality improvement conferences and featured in journals including Pediatrics and Critical Care Medicine. Participating hospitals have also shared the IPSO care bundle with myriad pediatric providers and institutions, including pre-hospital settings, critical access hospitals, and children’s hospitals that did not participate in the collaborative.

See the collaborative’s peer-reviewed, published results.

Continuing to advance best practices

With the conclusion of the IPSO collaborative, Children’s Hospital Association is facilitating a community of practice and supporting sepsis data tracking and benchmarking for children’s hospitals.

The Sepsis Community of Practice offers continued shared learning opportunities including webinars, an online discussion forum, and a library of resources. Data collection allows for ongoing trending and benchmarking of key performance metrics. The Community of Practice is open to any CHA member while data tracking is limited to hospitals that participate in CHA’s data programs.

  • Advocate Children’s Hospital
  • Akron Children’s Hospital
  • Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
  • Arkansas Children’s Hospital
  • Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children
  • Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital
  • Beacon Children’s Hospital
  • Boston Children’s Hospital
  • The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
  • C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
  • Children’s Health, Dallas
  • Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
  • The Children’s Hospital at Saint Francis
  • Children’s Hospital Colorado
  • Children’s Hospital of Orange County
  • Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU
  • Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital
  • Children’s Mercy Kansas City
  • Children’s National Hospital
  • Children’s Nebraska
  • Children’s of Alabama
  • Children’s Minnesota
  • Children’s Wisconsin
  • Cincinnati Children’s
  • Cohen Children’s Medical Center
  • Cone Health Women’s & Children’s Center at Moses
  • Cone Hospital
  • Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • Cook Children’s Medical Center
  • Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital
  • Dell Children’s Medical Center
  • El Paso Children’s Hospital
  • Goryeb Children’s Hospital
  • Hasbro Children’s Hospital at Rhode Island Hospital
  • Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone
  • Hoops Family Children’s Hospital
  • Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital
  • Janet Weis Children’s Hospital at Geisinger
  • Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital
  • Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital
  • Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital & Health Network
  • Mayo Clinic Children’s Center
  • MercyOne Children’s Hospital – Des Moines
  • Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt
  • MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital
  • Nationwide Children’s Hospital
  • Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware
  • Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida
  • Nicklaus Children’s Hospital
  • Niswonger Children’s Hospital
  • North Carolina Children’s Hospital
  • Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health
  • Penn State Children’s Hospital
  • Phoenix Children’s
  • Primary Children’s Hospital
  • Seattle Children’s
  • St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
  • St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital St. Luke’s Regional
  • Medical Center
  • Texas Children’s Hospital
  • UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital
  • University of Maryland Children’s Hospital
  • University of New Mexico Children’s Hospital
  • UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital
  • Valley Children’s Healthcare
  • Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital


The IPSO Change Package

Leveraging insights from 66 children’s hospitals, more than 2,000 multidisciplinary experts, eight years of shared learning, and 100,000+ pediatric sepsis episodes, the IPSO collaborative created a comprehensive resource to equip hospitals with evidence-based strategies to reduce deaths from sepsis.

The change package includes:

  • A lifesaving bundle of care
  • Strategies for effective implementation
  • Key measures for tracking performance
  • 70+ sepsis tools from high-performing hospitals

The change package is intended to guide care teams in emergency departments and inpatient hospital settings of all kinds through the process of establishing a coordinated sepsis program and should be used alongside the latest pediatric sepsis literature.

Authors
  • Elise Buckwalter, MSN, CPNP-AC
  • Holly Depinet, MD, MPH
  • Sarah Kandil, MD
  • Grant Keeney, MD, MS
  • Roni D. Lane, MD
Contributors
  • Mahsa Akhavan, MD; Elizabeth Mack, MD, MS
  • Monica Nielsen-Parker, MSW
  • Raina Paul, MD
  • Ruth Riggs
  • Melissa Schafer, MD
  • Erin M. Schulz, MSN, RN, EMT, C-NPT
  • Jayne Stuart, MPH
  • Jennifer Wilkes, MD, MSCE