Beckman Coulter, Brea, Calif, has exclusively sponsored the Escavo Sepsis Clinical Guide, a mobile point-of-care medical reference application for healthcare professionals who manage septic patients in acute-care settings.
Escavo develops mobile applications and medical education content for medical professionals and the healthcare industry. Applications range from point-of-care medical reference guides to clinical decision support tools that facilitate the delivery of high-quality healthcare.
Intended for use by medical professionals, the Sepsis Clinical Guide is a mobile application for iOS and Android platforms that contains information about the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis. Its content is based on the latest clinical practice guidelines from leading organizations in the field, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), and the Surviving Sepsis Campaign.
Topics covered in the app include the latest sepsis-3 definitions and diagnostic criteria, and treatment recommendations from the 2016 Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines, plus sections on the following:
- Sepsis epidemiology, mortality, economic impact, risk factors, and pathophysiology.
- Diagnostic information on common symptoms, imaging tests, and other procedures used in sepsis care.
- Patient management information, including adjunctive therapy, hemodynamic resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, and sepsis treatment bundles.
- An empiric antibiotic therapy guide, with specific guidelines for the treatment of hospital- and ventilator-acquired pneumonia and intraabdominal infections.
- Pediatric and neonatal sepsis diagnosis and management.
- Important diagnostic and prognostic scores.
- Drug administration guide for antimicrobials, corticosteroids, diuretics, and vasoactive agents.
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that requires prompt recognition and treatment. Delayed treatment can rapidly cause cardiovascular collapse, tissue damage, organ failure, and death. More than a million people are diagnosed with sepsis each year in the United States alone.
“While great strides have been made in standardizing sepsis treatment in recent years, there is still considerable variability in the quality of care among hospitals,” says Daniel Nichita, MD, founder of Escavo and author of the Sepsis Clinical Guide mobile app. “One reason for this is the difficulty of diagnosing this complex disorder, whose early symptoms are often very subtle and for which there is no definitive test, but also an uneven use of current clinical practice standards in sepsis care.”
Nichita adds, “Escavo developed the sepsis app to put critical information on sepsis management—based on the most current clinical practice guidelines—in the hands of busy clinicians, who may not always have the time to familiarize themselves with current trends. Its content is delivered in a concise, actionable format to allow rapid but effective clinical decisionmaking at the point of care.”
While the sepsis app can benefit all medical professionals, it is especially valuable for those working in the emergency room, where sepsis most commonly first presents.
“We are proud to sponsor the Sepsis Clinical Guide as part of our commitment to empowering healthcare professionals with tools and resources that enable them to detect sepsis as early as possible in the patient’s pathway of care,” says Peter Soltani, PhD, senior vice president and general manager of the hematology business at Beckman Coulter. “Awareness and access to up-to-date medical care information is an important and critical step in combating this devastating health condition.”
Healthcare providers can download the Sepsis Clinical Guide app from Google Play for Android devices, or from the App Store for the iOS platform. To find the app, users can search ‘sepsis.’ The Sepsis Clinical Guide is recognizable by an orange-colored icon and, as the top-ranked sepsis-related app, it appears first in the search results.
According to Beckman Coulter, the company will ensure that the tool will remain free for all users, and that content will continue to be maintained and updated using the latest clinical practice standards.
For more information, visit Beckman Coulter Diagnostics.