Utilising electronic health record data to assess the sepsis inpatient care pathway: a feasibility study

The World Health Organisation has recently declared sepsis a global medical emergency. Obtaining quality data to establish the evidence on how clinicians recognise, diagnose, and treat sepsis is still a challenge. This feasibility study aimed to utilise routinely collected data from electronic health records (EHR) to assess the sepsis inpatient care pathway. We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study which included all patients admitted to a private teaching hospital between 2015 and 2018. De-identified patient demographic and clinical data were extracted and analysed. A total of 47 sepsis patients were identified based on diagnoses recorded and a review of clinical notes. A surgical procedure was conducted on more than half of these patients (n=25, 53%). Nearly two-thirds were given antibiotics (n=30, 64%), of which 87% (n=26) were administered within 2-hours of sepsis diagnosis. Eighteen patients were admitted to ICU and 13 of them were diagnosed as septic in ICU. We identified some aspects of EHR data that could be improved. Overall, routinely collected data from clinical information systems provides rich information to assess the sepsis patient care pathway.