Comparative effectiveness of physician diagnosis and guideline definitions in identifying sepsis patients in the emergency department

Our study showed that ED physician diagnosis of sepsis may disagree with the international definitions such that severe sepsis is underrecognized by clinical judgment alone. Although these results are limited to a single center, we raise concern that early treatments for these high-risk patients may be delayed due to inaccurate clinical diagnosis. Efforts are needed to increase the application of sepsis guideline definitions to better identify ED patients with this potentially deadly condition.