Beyond SEP-1 Compliance: Assessing the Impact of Antibiotic Overtreatment and Fluid Overload in Suspected Septic Patients.

Background: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) developed the Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock Performance Measure bundle (SEP-1) metric to improve sepsis care, but evidence supporting this bundle is limited and harms secondary to compliance have not been investigated.

Objective: This study investigates the effect of an emergency department (ED) sepsis quality-improvement (QI) effort to improve CMS SEP-1 compliance, looking specifically at antibiotic overtreatment and harm from fluid resuscitation.

Methods: This was a retrospective observational study conducted between March and July 2021 with patients for whom a sepsis order set was initiated.