Regional sepsis care in Catalonia: comparative insights from a secondary analysis of the European Sepsis Care Survey

Increasing the resources available in healthcare settings to improve the detection of sepsis can significantly reduce mortality rates. These resources could include advanced diagnostic tools, sepsis screening protocols and ongoing medical education for healthcare providers, ensuring they are equipped to identify sepsis in its early stages. Policies should advocate integrating sepsis detection systems into existing healthcare frameworks. The regional government of Catalonia has promoted such an action plan since its establishment in 2015. This action plan includes a programme called Sepsis Code, which was developed by seven scientific societies and the prehospital emergency department, and has been approved by healthcare policy stakeholders and implemented since 2017. Similar programmes have been implemented for other time-dependent diseases. The programme includes an organisational model according to hospital levels of care and locations, suggested training programmes (including an app), screening tools, and an automated registry. This study aims to compare the quality of healthcare in Catalonia, a Spanish region with a programme for the rapid diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, with data from centres in the rest of the European Union. Hospitals in Catalonia, a region with a sepsis management programme (Codigo Sepsis) promoted by healthcare policy, have higher rates of sepsis screening and standardised sepsis management.