Sepsis is medicine’s last remaining preserve for unrestrained antibiotic prescribing. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines recommend empirical broad-spectrum therapy within one hour of triage for both sepsis and septic shock. This recommendation, and mandates that compel it, encourage clinicians to adopt an approach of “treat first, ask questions later” for patients with any possibility of serious infection. This approach fails to account for the difficulties clinicians face with diagnosing infection, especially when patients initially present to care, and the high rate of over-diagnosis of sepsis, and thus risks promoting excess antibiotic use and causing unintended harm.

Read More