Date of Scholarly Project Submission

3-2022

Degree Type

Scholarly Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Faculty Chairperson

Dr. Terry Durley

Second Committee Member

Anne Stein

Third Committee Member

Melissa Romero

Abstract

Sepsis is a medical emergency that is prevalent throughout hospitals everywhere. Due to the growing crisis, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in collaboration with the Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) adopted core measures for sepsis (SEP-1) which aim at improving overall compliance of evidence-based treatment standards for sepsis. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was to determine if incorporating early goal directed sepsis bundles in a rural Midwestern ED was effective in increasing compliance with SEP-1 rates. The secondary purpose evaluated how nursing knowledge, awareness, and compliance with sepsis bundles affects SEP-1 compliance rates. A permutation t test was performed to compare SEP-1 compliance rates for 2019 before any sepsis protocol was implemented, which was 43.9%. A formal sepsis protocol started March 2, 2020, with data collection occurring from March 2020 to March 2021 and included 37 patients, showing an overall ED SEP-1 compliance of 64.9%. No significant findings were seen in nursing compliance with the sepsis bundle. Overall, these findings show that an organized approach and incorporating an early goal directed sepsis protocol to clinical practice guidelines did show an improvement in SEP-1 compliance scores.

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