Abstract
Patients with sepsis make up 1% of the hospital admissions and accounts for almost 1000 deaths yearly in Norway. Worldwide it is estimated that 1400 people die every day from sepsis. Severe sepsis has a mortality rate of nearly 30%, which rises to 70% if three or more organ systems fail.
The Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) was founded in 2002 by the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the International Sepsis Forum in an attempt to lower the high lethality of severe sepsis and septic shock with 25% within five years. The SSC published international guidelines for management of severe sepsis and septic shock in 2004. It was also created several bundles of care, to help the implementation of the guidelines in hospitals.
When the 2004-guidelines were implemented in 252 health care centres, the mortality rate went down 14,6% in two years, and other trials have shown similar results. The SSC's guidelines were updated in 2008, and the Campaign still works for the optimisation of sepsis management based on the best available evidence. This literature study is a review of the SSC's work, results and on-going effort to reduce the mortality of severe sepsis and septic shock.