ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT05625464Updated Nov 23, 2022

Effect of Automated Real-time Feedback on Early Sepsis Care

An interventional study of SCTP in Sepsis, sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2022-11-23.

Sponsored by Massachusetts General Hospital · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention

From the registry’s dates

  • Registered 1 year 11 months after the study started (first participant enrolled Dec 2020, registered Nov 2022).
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
3,269
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
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Study summary

Sepsis is the leading cause of death among US hospitals, accounting for 6% of all hospitalizations and 35% of all inpatient deaths. International guidelines and the CMS SEP-1 bundle stress the importance of adhering to specific steps in the diagnosis and management of sepsis. This can be very difficult, especially in the setting of a busy ED, ward, or ICU where there are multiple simultaneous demands on providers' attention and time. Critical steps can be missed or delayed. The CMS SEP-1 bundle is a measure of compliance with sepsis care that is being tracked nationally across hospitals.

Unfortunately, a recent study demonstrated that every hour of delay to the completion of a sepsis bundle, including antibiotic administration, was associated with a 4% increase in risk-adjusted hospital mortality.

One strategy to improve the care and outcomes of patients with sepsis is the use of information technology to support our providers in a targeted manner. Technology has already been developed and deployed to help with the early identification of patients with sepsis using a Best Practice Alert (BPA), which has been in place at our hospital since 2017. This pop-up window alerts the team to the possibility of sepsis based on data within the medical record. However, once the alert is accepted or declined, the BPA does not offer ongoing support to clinicians, leaving the clinician to track and execute multiple time-based and inter-dependent sepsis bundle measures in a busy, hectic environment. To augment this existing tool, here we propose to study the efficacy of a novel technology called the Sepsis Care Tracking Platform (SCTP) to provide ongoing support at the bedside to providers, thus improving the care we deliver to patients.

SCTP is a monitoring and notification platform that aims to increase the timely delivery of key elements of evidence-based sepsis care. This platform, which was built by clinicians for clinicians, leverages the electronic medical record (EMR) to track real-time compliance with key components of the CMS SEP-1 bundle - timely antibiotics, blood cultures prior to antibiotics, initial lactate, and repeat lactate for those patients with an initially elevated level. SCTP underwent technical validation in Fall 2019 with a pilot in the MGH Emergency Department. The pilot confirmed that SCTP correctly identified missing bundle elements and paged the appropriate team members connected with the patient's care. The pilot also did not find alarm fatigue to be an issue. We hypothesize that SCTP will increase our hospital's compliance with sepsis process metrics and improve patient outcomes.

By monitoring real-time data and automatically alerting bedside providers to missing elements within an actionable timeframe, SCTP has the potential to drive improvements in clinical care even in the extremely busy and complex environment of the emergency department and inpatient units.

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Conditions studied

  • Sepsis

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03

In context

Sepsis

1,946 studies on the registry are indexed under Sepsis; 471 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 3,269 is above the median of 105 across 918 interventional studies indexed under Sepsis.

Browse Sepsis studies →

Lead sponsor

Massachusetts General Hospital is the lead sponsor of 2,582 studies on the registry; 451 are open to participants now.

Of its 221 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 168 (76%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Adult patients aged 18 years old and over
  2. Who triggered a sepsis best practice advisory that was subsequently acknowledged by a treating clinician as "yes, sepsis possible"

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Transfer from an outside hospital
  2. Sepsis best practice advisory triggered while the patient is in an intensive care unit
  3. Sepsis best practice advisory triggered while the patient is in a perioperative care area
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Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Prevention
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Triple (Participant, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
3,269 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention

    Received SCTP monitoring and standard of care

    Other: SCTP

  • No intervention
    Control

    Received standard of care only

Interventions

  • OtherSCTP

    Real-time automated monitoring of the electronic medical record to identify suspected sepsis patients without completion of sepsis bundle measures within 1-hour of the completion deadline and generated reminder pages. Clinicians responsible for patients randomized to the intervention receive reminder pages whereas no pages are sent for control arm patients.

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What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. 3-hour sepsis bundle order compliance

    Overall 3-hour bundle ordering compliance, defined as orders for all 3-hour bundle measures monitored by the study platform completed within the bundle time limits - i.e., orders for antibiotics, blood cultures, and lactate measurement measured from the electronic medical record at the end of the study period

    Time frame: Within 3 hours of sepsis BPA trigger (time zero)

Secondary outcomes

  1. Antibiotic order compliance

    Antibiotic ordering compliance, defined as orders for antibiotics placed within 3 hours of timezero

    Time frame: within 3 hours of timezero

  2. Blood culture order compliance

    Blood culture ordering compliance, defined as orders for blood cultures placed within 3 hours of time-zero

    Time frame: within 3 hours of time-zero

  3. Initial lactate order compliance

    Initial blood lactate level ordering compliance, defined as orders for initial blood lactate level within 3 hours of time-zero

    Time frame: within 3 hours of time-zero

  4. Repeat lactate order compliance

    Repeat blood lactate level ordering compliance, defined as orders for repeat blood lactate level placed within 6 hours of time-zero and within 3 hours of initial lactate measurement, among patients with initial lactate \> 2.0mmol/L

    Time frame: placed within 6 hours of time-zero and within 3 hours of initial lactate measurement

  5. 3-hour sepsis bundle care delivery compliance

    Overall 3-hour bundle care delivery compliance, defined as the implementation of all 3-hour bundle measures monitored by the study platform completed within the bundle time limits - i.e., administration of antibiotics, collection of blood cultures prior to antibiotic administration, and lactate measurement.

    Time frame: Within 3 hours of sepsis BPA trigger (time zero)

  6. Antibiotic delivery compliance

    Antibiotic delivery compliance, defined as administration of antibiotics within 3 hours of timezero

    Time frame: within 3 hours of timezero

  7. Blood culture delivery compliance

    Blood cultures delivery compliance, defined collection of blood cultures within 3 hours of timezero and prior to antibiotic administration

    Time frame: within 3 hours of timezero and prior to antibiotic administration

  8. Initial lactate delivery compliance

    Initial lactate delivery compliance, defined measurement of initial lactate within 3 hours of time-zero

    Time frame: within 3 hours of time-zero

  9. Repeat lactate delivery compliance

    Repeat lactate delivery compliance, defined as the measurement of a repeat lactate within 6 hours of time-zero and within 3 hours of initial lactate measurement, among patients with an initial lactate \> 2.0mmol/L

    Time frame: within 6 hours of time-zero and within 3 hours of initial lactate measurement

  10. Mortality by Day 28

    Mortality by Day 28

    Time frame: Within 28 days of time zero

  11. Early mechanical ventilation

    Early mechanical ventilation, defined as the receipt of mechanical ventilation or death within 72 hours of time-zero

    Time frame: within 72 hours of time-zero

  12. Early intensive care unit admission

    Early intensive care unit (ICU) admission, defined as ICU admission or death within 72 hours of time-zero

    Time frame: within 72 hours of time-zero

  13. Mechanical ventilation during hospitalization

    Mechanical ventilation during hospitalization, defined as receipt of mechanical ventilation or death within 28 days of time-zero

    Time frame: within 28 days of time-zero

  14. Early antibiotic discontinuation

    Early antibiotic discontinuation, defined as discontinuation of all antibiotics for at least 24 hours by 48 hours post-time-zero

    Time frame: at least 24 hours by 48 hours post-time-zero

  15. Hospital length of stay

    Hospital length of stay, defined as hospital days from time-zero through day 28

    Time frame: Through day 28 after time zero

  16. Blood culture positivity

    Blood culture positivity, defined as bacterial growth recovered from any blood culture collected 24 hours before or 7 days after time zero

    Time frame: 24 hours before or 7 days after time zero

  17. Non-blood culture positivity

    Non-blood culture positivity, defined as bacterial pathogen recovery from any urine, respiratory, peritoneal, pleural, joint, or cerebrospinal fluid culture collected 24 hours before or 7 days after time zero

    Time frame: 24 hours before or 7 days after time zero

  18. Any culture positivity

    Any culture positivity, defined as a composite of positive results from either the blood or non-blood culture positivity outcome

    Time frame: 24 hours before or 7 days after time zero

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
    Boston, Massachusetts 02114, United States
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References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Dec 2020 to primary completion in Nov 2021, 11 months.

Of 246 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Sepsis, half reached primary completion within 22 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 12 and three quarters within 44. This study's 11 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 267 studies reached it within 22 months; a quarter within 12 and three quarters within 43.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Nov 13, 2022
First posted
Nov 23, 2022
StartActual
Dec 1, 2020
Primary completionActual
Nov 30, 2021
CompletionActual
Nov 30, 2021
Last update
Nov 23, 2022
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Nov 23, 2022, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05625464
Collaborators
Crico
Responsible party
Kyan Safavi (Assistant Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital) — Principal investigator
First posted
Nov 23, 2022
Start date
Dec 1, 2020
Primary completion
Nov 30, 2021
Completion
Nov 30, 2021
Last update
Nov 23, 2022

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Nov 2022. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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