Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Sepsis Improvement

Our Priority Focus Area project themed around clinical excellence and safety.

About the project

The Sep­sis Improve­ment Project (SIP) is a statewide ini­tia­tive to improve how sep­sis is recog­nised and man­aged across South Australia. 

It brings togeth­er clin­i­cians, con­sumers and health part­ners to improve ear­ly recog­ni­tion, esca­la­tion and best-prac­tice man­age­ment with the aim of reduc­ing sep­sis-relat­ed death and illness. 

The project uses data insights to sup­port more con­sis­tent, evi­dence-based care across health­care settings. 

The oppor­tu­ni­ty

Sep­sis is a life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tion of infec­tion that can affect anyone.

Many cas­es devel­op at home and require time­ly, coor­di­nat­ed care across dif­fer­ent set­tings and disciplines. 

The SIP pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to: 

  • agree on a shared def­i­n­i­tion of sep­sis to sup­port mon­i­tor­ing across the system
  • reduce unwar­rant­ed clin­i­cal variation 
  • sup­port clin­i­cal excel­lence and safety
  • improve align­ment with the nation­al Sep­sis Clin­i­cal Care Stan­dard across South Australia.

Our approach

The project is cur­rent­ly in the dis­cov­ery phase, focus­ing on engag­ing with stake­hold­ers, under­stand­ing cur­rent prac­tice and review­ing avail­able evi­dence and data. 

After dis­cov­ery, the project will move to plan­ning, imple­men­ta­tion and evaluation. 

The SIP is sup­port­ed by a Clin­i­cal Lead, Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, an expert advi­so­ry group and part­ner­ships with Local Health Net­works (LHNs).

Ini­tial objec­tives are to: 

  • improve ear­ly recog­ni­tion, diag­no­sis and time­ly man­age­ment of sepsis 
  • reduce unwar­rant­ed clin­i­cal vari­a­tion across LHNs 
  • use dig­i­tal sys­tems and data to sup­port real-time con­tin­u­ous improvement. 

Our peo­ple

Professor Andrew Bersten

Sepsis Improvement Priority Focus Area Clinical Lead

Pro­fes­sor Andrew Bersten is an inten­sive care spe­cial­ist and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Research at the South­ern Ade­laide Local Health Network. 

He has held senior lead­er­ship roles includ­ing ICU Direc­tor and Clin­i­cal Direc­tor of Med­i­cine, Car­diac and Crit­i­cal Care.

Fol­low­ing a research fel­low­ship in Cana­da focused on sep­sis and acute lung injury, he has built an inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised career in crit­i­cal care med­i­cine. He has authored around 200 pub­li­ca­tions and the Edi­tor of ​“Oh’s Inten­sive Care Man­u­al” for four Editions.

His cur­rent work focus­es on data-dri­ven qual­i­ty improve­ment and advanc­ing sep­sis care through learn­ing health sys­tem approaches.

Our focus

The project has three key areas to sup­port safer, more con­sis­tent sep­sis care across South Australia.

  • Data and dig­i­tal: We want to stan­dard­ise sys­tem-lev­el sep­sis mon­i­tor­ing and iden­ti­fy clin­i­cal vari­a­tion using elec­tron­ic med­ical record data. We will con­sid­er dig­i­tal tools (includ­ing AI) to improve ear­li­er recog­ni­tion and more con­sis­tent care.
  • Aware­ness and capa­bil­i­ty: We want to improve aware­ness, edu­ca­tion and capa­bil­i­ty across the health sys­tem to sup­port ear­ly recog­ni­tion, esca­la­tion and time­ly treat­ment for sepsis.
  • Evi­dence in prac­tice: We want to iden­ti­fy excel­lence and inno­va­tion and sup­port LHNs to imple­ment best-prac­tice pro­to­cols, clin­i­cal care stan­dards and local improve­ment initiatives.
Key documents and resources
  • Sep­sis for Health Pro­fes­sion­als — Statewide sep­sis path­ways and guide­lines, clin­i­cal edu­ca­tion resources for health pro­fes­sion­als and resources to sup­port sep­sis awareness.
  • SA Health Sep­sis Web­page — Infor­ma­tion for con­sumers with com­mon ques­tions and answers, infor­ma­tion for adults, babies and chil­dren and help­ful infor­ma­tion for life after sepsis.
  • Sep­sis Improve­ment and Inno­va­tion Show­case — The CEIH Show­case series high­lights work across the Local Health Net­works, as well as state and nation­al efforts to reduce sep­sis relat­ed ill­ness and deaths. 

Ques­tions?

To learn more about the Sep­sis Improve­ment Project, email CEIH.​Sepsis@​sa.​gov.​au.