In a significant effort to support hospitals in the early recognition and treatment of sepsis among pediatric patients, the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) has introduced a resource called ‘change package’. This solution is part of the Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) collaborative’s masterstroke which leverages data and strategies from more than 66 hospitals over eight years to tackle over 100,000 sepsis cases. This evidence-based tactic of the IPSO bundle has been estimated to have saved 570 lives as per an April 21 press release.
The IPSO change package is an integrated resource comprising evidence-based strategies designed to mitigate pediatric mortality, best practice methods for implementation, guidelines for measuring performance, and sepsis tools from top-performing hospitals. Sepsis, notoriously difficult to diagnose and even more complex to identify in children, claims around 7,000 lives annually in the U.S.
It is interesting to note, as emphasized by Torey Mack, MD, Chief Medical Office at CHA, that even though pediatric sepsis is a significant cause of child mortality, its repercussions are often brutal and life-altering even if the child survives. Survivors are often forced to live with chronic medical conditions and life-changing disabilities including amputations, hearing loss, and cognitive impairment. This reality underscores the importance of the groundbreaking strategies of the IPSO collaborative.
In their push to improve sepsis outcomes, parallel initiatives have been launched by the Joint Commission since 2025, reflecting their evolving approach to this widespread health issue.