A doctor at UVA Health and other national experts have developed new guidelines to improve care for patients who develop sepsis.

Sepsis kills at least 350,000 Americans each year. These new guidelines were assembled on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and seven other professional group in an attempt to standardize and enhance practices and workflows in hospitals to ensure patients receive the best-possible sepsis care.

Sepsis is a leading cause of serious illness and death despite decades’ worth of research to improve recognition and treatment. It happens when a patient’s immune response spirals out of control in response to an infection and can lead to organ failure and death. The new guidelines address areas of sepsis-related care such as diagnostic testing and pathogen detection, antimicrobial management, infection prevention and surveillance, and performance measurement.

Some of the recommendations include implementing rapid molecular testing of positive blood cultures; ensuring immediate antibiotic therapy for patients suffering from septic shock; deploying electronic sepsis surveillance; and standardizing daily toothbrushing to reduce hospital-acquired pneumonia. The guidelines also highlight emerging technologies, like next-generation diagnostics and artificial intelligence-enhanced clinical decision support.