Please include the word severe whenever diagnosing your patient using the 2016 Sepsis-3 SOFA criteria.
• The Society of Critical Care Medicine supports the Sepsis-3 (SOFA) scoring system to diagnose severe sepsis.
• The 2016 JAMA paper suggests that all sepsis is severe sepsis when using the SOFA criteria.
The patient must have an acute change in physical exam and/or laboratory findings consequent to infection to meet the criteria. Remember the diagnosis must be Present On Admission (POA) to be included in CMS (Medicare’s) calculated expected mortality.
Download the complete tip, Sepsis-3 SOFA Made Easy.