[Before-after study of the effect of implementing a sepsis code for emergency departments in the community of Aragon].

Objectives: To study the effect of an emergency department sepsis code on the degree of compliance with measures recommended by the Surviving Sepsis Campaign and short-term mortality in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Aragon.

Material And Methods: Quasi-experimental study of 2 case cohorts, one including of cases before implementation of the sepsis code and one included cases managed afterwards. We extracted retrospectively data from hospital records for infectious processes and organ failures between December 2012 and January 2013 for the pre-code group and between December 2014 and January 2015 for the post-code group. Staff training sessions on the campaign recommendations were provided and the code, which specified clinical pathways, was activated electronically on inputting clinical variables at the moment of triage. Outcome measures were the percentage of compliance with the campaign's recommendations in the first 3 hours after a patient's arrival at the emergency department in-hospital mortality, and 30-day mortality.

Results: A total of 222 cases were included in each group. Compliance with the following campaign recommendations improved after implementation of the sepsis code: antibiotic therapy in the first hour (P=.100), extractions for blood cultures (P 001), lactic acid measurement (P 001), and recommended fluid loading (P 001). In-hospital mortality was 31.1% in the pre-code cohort and 20.7% post-code; 30-day mortality rates were 30.1% and 19.8%, respectively (P=.016, all comparisons).

Conclusion: Use of a sepsis code led to short-term improvement in how often the measures recommended by a sepsis survival campaign were put into practice.