Implementation Trial of Predictive Modeling to Enhance Diagnosis and Improve Treatment in Pediatric Septic Shock

The intervention will be activating a septic shock clinical decision support tool (CDS) in the Electronic Health Record at the site, making it available to trigger and alert Emergency Department providers during clinical care. Patients will be identified when providers suspect sepsis and initiate a sepsis evaluation, using the institutional, clinically-standard, sepsis pathway/orderset. After the CDS is triggered, it will use available Electronic Health Record data to calculate the risk of septic shock, using previously-published predictive models \[Ref 1, 2\]. The CDS will notify providers if the patient is at elevated risk of septic shock and prompt them to follow institutional standard care for septic shock (including close monitoring, complete laboratory evaluation for organ dysfunction, and immediate clinical involvement of an attending Pediatric Emergency Physician). All clinical care decisions will be determined by the providers.

Emergency Department sites in this arm will not have Clinical Decision Support for septic shock visible in the Electronic Health Record for providers at the site. Providers will follow usual institutional standards of sepsis care.