This 2018 commentary from the American College of Emergency Physicians by 7 physicians discussed the harm that will result from imposing a mandatory paradigm of sepsis treatment. I’ll quote sections that mention evidence:

“These metrics [for pneumonia treatment] had little evidentiary basis but led to an institutional-fostered culture of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Have we learned from this folly or does a new sepsis guideline promote similar time-based treatment strategies with little direct supporting evidence?

Like the pneumonia quality measure, this resource-heavy care flows from an overreaching interpretation of evidence. Despite that evidence consistently fails to find a benefit of a single treatment strategy, the Surviving Sepsis Campaign continues to promote recommendations that bypass the individual clinician’s judgment.

Although well intentioned, the current sepsis bundles and the potential penalties associated with noncompliance lay a heavy weight on ED [emergency department] care absent evidence that a net benefit will follow. The proposed Surviving Sepsis Campaign abbreviated bundle heightens the burden by further restricting the time allotted for the identification and treatment of patients with suspected sepsis, all without any evidence of benefit or knowledge of the logistic consequences or cost.”

The paradigm’s promoters didn’t learn the appropriate lessons in the above page regarding “the sense of embarrassment and regret once experienced with the pneumonia quality metric.”

What do you think are the root causes of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign’s agenda?

• Did it start with lawyers? Lawsuits can force hospitals into actions for which the primary reason is to avoid “the potential penalties associated with noncompliance.”
• Is it due to governments? Governments can force hospitals into actions “without any evidence of benefit or knowledge of the logistic consequences or cost” when the hospitals accept government reimbursement.
• Did it start with other groups of unaccountable people who think they know better than everyone else about how others should act?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064418306073 “The 2018 Surviving Sepsis Campaign’s Treatment Bundle: When Guidelines Outpace the Evidence Supporting Their Use” (not freely available)