• Christian S Scheer, Evangelos J Giamarellos-Bourboulis, Ricard Ferrer, Evgeny A Idelevich, Djillali Annane, Antonio Artigas, Abdullah Tarik Aslan, Gabriella Bottari, Hjalmar R Bouma, Vladimir Černy, Renata Curić Radivojević, Konstantina Dakou, Ken Dewitte, Mohamed Elbahnasawy, Matthias Gründling, Mohan Gurjar, Johanna Hästbacka, Miltiadis Kyprianou, Said Laribi, Annmarie Lassen, Konstantin Lebedinskii, Jan Máca, MalbrainManu L N GMLNG0000-0002-1816-5255VUB University, Brussel, Belgium., Gianpaola Monti, Marlies Ostermann, Michael Osthoff, José Artur Paiva, Michela Sabbatucci, Jakub Śmiechowicz, Mihai Gabriel Ştefan, Marcus Vollmer, Natalija Vuković, Kyriakos Zaragkoulias, Konrad Reinhart, Adam Linder, Daniela Filipescu, and European Sepsis Care Study Group.
• University Medicine Greifswald, Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Pain Medicine, Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany; Christian.Scheer@med.uni-greifswald.de.
• Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 2025 Jan 9.

RationaleEarly detection, standardized therapy, adequate infrastructure and strategies for quality improvement should constitute essential components of every hospital's sepsis plan.ObjectivesTo investigate the extent to which recommendations from the sepsis guidelines are implemented and the availability of infrastructure for the care of patients with sepsis in acute hospitals.MethodsA multidisciplinary cross-sectional questionnaire was used to investigate sepsis care in hospitals. This included the use of sepsis definitions, the implementation of sepsis guideline recommendations, diagnostic and therapeutic infrastructure, antibiotic stewardship, and quality improvement initiatives in hospitals.Measurements And Main Results1023 hospitals in 69 countries were included. Most of them, 835 (81.6%) were from Europe. Sepsis screening was used in 54.2% of emergency departments(EDs), 47.9% of wards, and 61.7% of intensive care units(ICUs). Sepsis management was standardized in 57.3% of EDs, 45.2% of wards and in 70.7% of ICUs. The implementation of comprehensive quality improvement initiatives(QIIs) was associated with increased screening (EDs +33.3%; wards +44.4%; ICUs +23.8% absolute difference) and increased standardized sepsis management (EDs +33.6%; wards +40.0%; ICUs: +17.7% absolute difference) compared to hospitals without QIIs. 9.8% of hospitals had implemented ongoing QIIs, and 4.6% had invested in sepsis programs.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that there is considerable room for improvement in a large number of mainly European hospitals, particularly with regards to early identification and standardized management of sepsis, the availability of guidelines, diagnostic and therapeutic infrastructure, and the implementation of QIIs. Further efforts are required to implement a more comprehensive and appropriate quality of care.

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