Abstract
Sample/Setting: The setting is the emergency department at a private, not-for-profit, teaching hospital with 80-90,000 emergency center visits annually. The sample included 312 total patient's presenting to the ED with ICD 10 codes (A40.3-A.41.9).|Methods: Data were collected through retrospective chart review 3 months prior to implementation of the sepsis resource nurse for comparison to data during two-month project implementation. Data points evaluated included: average hospital length of stay (days), percent of door to antibiotic administration less than 60 minutes, median minutes door to antibiotic order, median minutes door to antibiotic administration, median minutes antibiotic order to administration.|Results: Average length of hospital stay was unchanged throughout the project. October data revealed a decrease in the number of patients who received antibiotics within 60 minutes of presentation and an increase in the median minutes from antibiotic order to administration. November revealed 42% increase in number of patients that received antibiotics within 60 minutes and a 13.9% decrease in the median minutes from antibiotic order to administration.|Conclusion: The implementation of the sepsis resource nurse showed a significant impact on the variables studied for this project. The initial increase in time variables during the first month of implementation (October) could potentially be attributed to the initiation of practice change, supported by the fact that as staff became used to the role/workflow, data improved in the second month (November).