Success Story: Sharp Decline in Pediatric Sepsis Mortality Rate

At the Intermountain Pediatric Sepsis Program, our mission is to ensure that every child cared for within the system receives timely, high-reliability, targeted sepsis therapy. Ultimately, our mission is to save children’s lives. Our latest data show that we are succeeding.

“When you see the sepsis mortality graph and see the trend dropping to nearly zero, you’re seeing lives saved. We’re saving children’s lives,” said Katy Welkie, CEO of Primary Children’s Hospital, after reviewing the latest numbers.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to an infection becomes dysregulated. It can lead to organ dysfunction and death if not recognized and treated promptly.

After the Primary Children’s Hospital Emergency Department (ED) sepsis program began in 2007, mortality from pediatric sepsis among ED patients decreased from 9% to 2%, and we’ve kept the rate low ever since.

We started expanding our sepsis quality improvement work to other Primary Children’s Hospital units in 2017, with a hospital-wide launch in 2019. Initial mortality for the inpatient care areas (pediatric and cardiac intensive care units, medical-surgical units, cancer transplant unit) was approximately 9% in 2019 and has dropped steadily over the past few years to just under 1% in 2022. We hope to achieve the same sustained improvement in the inpatient areas as we have in the ED. 

We have a systematic approach to assess every child who visits the hospital – from the emergency department to the intensive care units and all the units in between. This approach includes:

1. An automated sepsis alert integrated into iCentra
2. A multidisciplinary bedside huddle during which the care team discusses whether the child has signs and symptoms concerning for sepsis
3. If sepsis is a possibility, diagnostic testing and interventions with clearly established goals for timeliness 

We’ve developed electronic health record-based and clinical workflows to facilitate early recognition and rapid resuscitation of pediatric sepsis, and our approach to data collection, analysis, and visualization allows us to continuously learn from and improve our processes.

Dedicated multidisciplinary teams in each clinical setting work together to continuously improve sepsis recognition and treatment. The Intermountain Pediatric Sepsis Program team is comprised of physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, nursing educators, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, patient technicians, data analysts, statisticians, medical informaticists, and researchers. 

Through systematic screening, prompt response, and standardized resuscitation, we have successfully decreased the number of children who develop organ failure, minimized morbidity among survivors of pediatric sepsis, and most importantly, decreased mortality from septic shock.

Primary Children’s Hospital is being formally recognized as a top performer at this week’s national Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) workshop. We’re sharing our care model with our peers across the nation so other hospitals can follow our lead.

We attribute the success of the Pediatric Sepsis Program to the passion and dedication of the team members and the unwavering support from the executive hospital leadership.