Defining, Developing and Understanding Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes

Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) is a collaborative dedicated to reducing sepsis-attributable mortality and improving survivor outcomes. As IPSO participants lead these quality improvement efforts, results include: 

Evaluating Pediatric Sepsis Definitions: A description of IPSO definitions' effectiveness for large-scale data abstraction, identifying patients treated for sepsis, as well as practical utility for use in quality improvement. The definitions demonstrated feasibility for large-scale data abstraction. The definitions also indicated strengths in content validity, convergent construct validity, and criterion validity; weakness in reliability.

Developing a Quality Improvement Collaborative: A description of the development of the learning collaborative and details the aims and key drivers based on treatment guidelines, evidence and baseline data.

Metric Development: A comprehensive data dictionary was developed for the largest pediatric sepsis QI collaborative, optimizing automation and ensuring sustainable reporting. These approaches can be used in other large-scale sepsis QI projects in which researchers leverage EHR data abstraction.

As the IPSO collaborative wraps up, check back for additional manuscripts, findings and information.