Effectiveness of the Emergency Severity Index in Early Identification of Sepsis in a Tertiary Care Hospital of a Low-resource Setting

Background: Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction, and a global issue, with incidence and mortality are around 49 M cases in 2017. Annual sepsis incidence from Pakistan is around 1600-2500 per 100, 000 cases with high mortality of approx. 30%. This huge mortality among sepsis and septic shock cases from low-income settings it is necessary to implement a focused and effective triage tool to prioritize and categorize the sick patients from huge bulk of sick patients who attend the ED and to identify those who need to be seen and manage accordingly. Emergency severity index (ESI), a widely acceptable tool that was developed to assess illness severity, hence able to identify the sick patients that need immediate attention at triage. Objectives: Our objective is to determine the effectiveness of ESI triage acuity in early recognition of patient with sepsis and septic shock at triage in a busy ED. Methods: This was a single center, cross sectional and observational study, we include 240 cases who present to the ED of a tertiary care hospital. We follow ESI v. 4.0. All cases presenting to the ED with suspected diagnosis of sepsis or septic shock were included. Data was collected on a predesigned data sheet. Participants were followed by their electronic medical record number through patient care information software where patient’s medical diagnosis and discharge diagnosis are present. Results: Total of 240 patients in the inclusion criteria, area under curve (AUC) for the ESI score I, for septic shock was 0.943 [0.921 - 0.964] with the optimal cutoff value of 2.0, sensitivity of 88.5% and specificity 100%. Similarly, the receiver operating curve (ROC) with area under the curve of ESI Score II for sepsis is found 0.2 [0.129-0.270] with sensitivity 23% and specificity was 12.7%. Conclusion: ESI is a reliable tool which is both sensitive and specific in screening patients with septic shock in a busy emergency department.