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Surviving Sepsis Campaign

Also: SSC · Barcelona Declaration (2002)

Joint initiative of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, launched in 2002 with the Barcelona Declaration, to cut sepsis deaths. It publishes evidence-based guidelines (first in 2004, updated about every four years) and ran a performance improvement program, with IHI, that packaged key recommendations into time-bound "bundles" for emergency departments, ICUs and wards.

Years
2002–now
Country
BelgiumUnited States
Topic
Infectious disease
Asks people to
RecognizeStart
Strategy
Multi level communitySimple instruction
Channel
Clinical settingEventsWebsite
Audience
Clinicians
Critical care, emergency and hospital ward clinicians; hospital quality teams.

Evidence

ObservationalPositive

Data from 15,022 patients at 165 sites, 2005-2008 (Levy 2010): compliance with the 6-hour resuscitation bundle rose from 10.9% to 31.3% and with the 24-hour management bundle from 18.4% to 36.1% over two years; unadjusted hospital mortality fell from 37% to 30.8%, an adjusted drop of 0.8 points per quarter of participation. No control group; the authors note this is association, not cause.

Sponsor (who paid)

Credits (who made it)

  • Institute for Healthcare Improvement Strategy source

Executions (individual ads)

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SCCM) sponsor
  2. History of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SCCM) history
  3. Levy MM, Dellinger RP, Townsend SR et al. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign: results of an international guideline-based performance improvement program targeting severe sepsis. Crit Care Med 38(2):367-74 evaluation · 2010 · DOI 10.1097/CCM.0b013e3181cb0cdc · PMID 20035219
  4. Levy MM et al. Outcomes of the Surviving Sepsis Campaign in intensive care units in the USA and Europe: a prospective cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis 2012 reference · 2012 · DOI 10.1016/s1473-3099(12)70239-6 · PMID 23103175
  5. Rhodes A et al. The Surviving Sepsis Campaign bundles and outcome: results from the International Multicentre Prevalence Study on Sepsis (the IMPreSS study). Intensive Care Med 2015 reference · 2015 · DOI 10.1007/s00134-015-3906-y · PMID 26109396
  6. Herrán-Monge R et al. Epidemiology and Changes in Mortality of Sepsis After the Implementation of Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines. J Intensive Care Med 2019 evaluation · 2019 · DOI 10.1177/0885066617711882 · PMID 28651474

Research notes

Clinician-facing campaign. Discovered 2026-10-22 (clinician-campaigns pass). SCCM history page fetched 2026-10-22 (launched 2002 by SCCM, ESICM and the International Sepsis Forum at the ESICM meeting, Barcelona Declaration; first guidelines 2004; IHI collaboration on bundles). Country lists US (SCCM) and BE (ESICM, Brussels); international campaign. Pediatric guidelines video year 2020 is the guideline year (posted about 6 years ago). Industry funding of the early phases (Eli Lilly) was criticized at the time; not checked here. Evaluation sources added 2026-10-22 (citation snowballing / helpline pass): Levy 2012, Rhodes 2015, Herrán-Monge 2019; evidence level and outcome unchanged. Evaluation links reviewed 2026-10-22: Levy 2012 (US vs Europe ICU outcomes) and Rhodes 2015 (IMPreSS) set to reference; they relate bundle compliance to outcomes rather than estimating a campaign effect. Evidence unchanged (rests on Levy 2010).

Record cases/surviving-sepsis-campaign.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign