title: Improving the management and care of people with sepsis.
abstract: Many hospitals struggle to implement the full sepsis care bundle, but research suggests that many patients with sepsis are transported to hospital by ambulance. In 2011, the Scottish Ambulance Service introduced a pre-hospital sepsis screening tool (PSST) to expedite sepsis identification and care delivery. However, ambulance clinicians have reported varying degrees of interest and enthusiasm from hospital staff during handover. Therefore, an online survey was set up to investigate medical and nursing staff perceptions and experiences of the introduction of a PSST. This article discusses the results, which show that participants perceive the PSST reduces time to treatment, improves continuity of care, benefits patients and is accurately applied by ambulance clinicians, but which also highlight problems with communication. The delivery of in-hospital and pre-hospital sepsis care is challenging, but simple measures such as improving and standardising communication and alert systems between ambulance services and receiving hospitals could improve the clinical effects of a PSST.
authors.affiliation: Scottish Ambulance Service and the nursing, midwifery and allied health professions research unit, University of Stirling, Stirling.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fitzpatrick
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McKenna
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rooney
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beckett
authors.forename: Norma
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pringle
mesh_terms: D000552:Ambulances; D004631:Emergency Medical Service Communication Systems; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000592:standards*; D058996:Quality Improvement; D012606:Scotland; D018805:Sepsis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome