Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes

Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes

Children’s Hospital Association and its members are leading efforts to reduce deaths and disabilities from sepsis.
Patient in hospital bed coloring.

Sepsis contributes to 20% of global deaths every year, with nearly 3 million being children. For those who survive, more than a third experience long-term health issues.

Pediatric sepsis research and guidelines are evolving, and preventing child deaths requires continual refining of evidence-based interventions. Challenging sepsis saves children's lives.

Doctor examines child patient in hospital.

Improving Pedatric Sepsis Outcomes Change Package

This improvement toolkit equips hospitals with practical resources and evidence-based strategies proven to reduce pediatric deaths from sepsis.

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Improving sepsis outcomes, together

From 2016-2023, the Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) nationwide collaborative brought together 66 children’s hospitals focused on improving outcomes for children with sepsis. Utilizing multimodal quality improvement (QI) science, evidence-based bundles of care, and data-driven performance evaluation, the IPSO collaborative successfully decreased mortality rates and time spent in the hospital among children with sepsis.

With a data set containing over 100,000 pediatric sepsis episodes, the IPSO collaborative’s published findings have contributed to the growing body of evidence supporting effective sepsis care.

Evidence from the IPSO Collaborative demonstrated that adherence to a bundle of care including early sepsis recognition, timely fluid bolus, and timely antibiotic administration improves outcomes. The bundle includes:

IPSO's impact: By the numbers

Through bundle compliance, patients with sepsis are identified earlier and receive more timely treatment, associated with up to: 

  • 80% lower 30-day sepsis-related mortality.
  • 16% fewer hospital days per sepsis episode.
  • 14% fewer antibiotic days.
  • 7% fewer ICU days.

Ongoing improvement work

Pediatric Sepsis Community of Practice

To continue improvements and spread the findings from IPSO, the Pediatric Sepsis Community of Practice is an opportunity for professionals to come together around best practices in pediatric sepsis care. The Community of Practice offers sepsis resources, an anytime discussion board, and regular virtual meetings for participants. All CHA members are welcome to join.

Sepsis Data Tracking Reports

Sepsis Data Tracking Reports within the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) and Inpatient Essentials (IE) programs offer the opportunity for CHA member hospitals to collect data, measure outcomes, and produce meaningful reporting for sepsis care.

Change Package

Eight years of insights from 66 children’s hospitals, more than 2,000 multidisciplinary experts, and 100,000+ pediatric sepsis episodes culminated in a comprehensive resource for improving pediatric sepsis care. Called a change package, this improvement toolkit equips care teams in emergency departments and inpatient settings in all kinds of hospitals with evidence-based strategies shown to reduce deaths from sepsis. The change package includes:

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

Download the change package now.