Exploring the Utility of the SeptiCyte in Clinical Decision-Making in the Emergency Department

Know thy enemy. A significant obstacle in treating and managing sepsis is the absence of a test or method to diagnose the disease rapidly. Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection (Sinha & Ray, 2018). Despite improvements to sepsis-related care and sepsis outcomes, it remains a worldwide concern and a leading cause of mortality. Early recognition and management of sepsis is critical to provide rapid treatment and to prevent deaths associated with sepsis and septic shock. Since most patients with sepsis receive their initial care in the emergency department, it is the front line of this continuous war. Given its vast range of clinical manifestations and intricate pathophysiology, sepsis is one of the most urgent and complicated illnesses seen in emergency medicine. This has compelled healthcare organizations and federal agencies to incorporate core measures and evidence-based research to improve sepsis care and patient outcomes. This paper will evaluate the utility of incorporating the SeptiCyte Rapid into FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital Emergency Department sepsis protocol. The SeptiCyte Rapid can assess a patient’s dysregulated immune response by quantifying and analyzing gene expression signatures from whole blood, providing physicians with actionable results to meet the core measure guidelines of a three-hour antibiotic administration and optimizing patient management decisions. More importantly, it provides the tools to hold the defensive line in the war on sepsis.