Potential to improve treatment decision time with the early sepsis indicator, monocyte distribution width, in patients presenting to the emergency department with suspicion of infection

Study Objectives: Establish a baseline of current practice for sepsis treatments and time to empiric antibiotic orders for patients meeting Sepsis-2 criteria (SIRS + infection) at two different hospital EDs then determine if MDW availability could potentially reduce time to antibiotics ordered. For this observational study, the decision impact of MDW on sepsis identification and patient management was simulated based on the time to obtain a CBC-DIFF and MDW result in the ED setting of each hospital. A secondary objective was to confirm the clinical validity of MDW to identify patients with higher probability of sepsis in the ED of these two hospitals.