EPOSS

The EPOSS project (data-based Evaluation and Prediction of Outcome in Severe Sepsis) was initiated in 2011 as a retrospective research database focused on the collection of real clinical data on patients with severe sepsis. EPOSS is an observational, multi-centre research project where a great emphasis is put on a fully representative collection of data: the involved centres will record all patients which meet the previously defined criteria. This clinical research database has been created as a part of a complex solution for the educational portal Sepsis-Q (available in Czech language only).

Epidemiological data show that sepsis is the main cause of morbidity and mortality of patients hospitalized at intensive care units (ICU). In Europe, sepsis occurs in about 35% of patients during their stay at ICU, according to data from the SOAP study (Sepsis Occurrence in Acutely Ill Patients). Despite some progress in therapy, mortality rates of patients with severe sepsis range between 20 to 70%, depending on the patient's age, comorbidities and the number of failinig organs. This has been one of the challenges which in 2002 led to the Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC), which was developed to help meet the challenges of sepsis and to improve its management, diagnosis, and treatment. The outputs of these initiative include, among others, the development of guidelines on treatment of severe sepsis: the first edition was published in 2004, and the second edition has been available since 2008.

The project has been running under the auspices of the Czech and Slovak Forum for Sepsis (CSFS), the Czech Society of Intensive Care Medicine (CSIM) and the Czech Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (CSARIM).

Project objectives:

• definition of the parametric record on treatment of patients with severe sepsis and its implementation in an on-line available research registry,
• description of real clinical practice in treatment of severe sepsis, based on data collected retrospectively in a representative network of health care facilities; typology of treatment burden in participating centres and quantification of achieved treatment outcomes,
• correlation of actual achievement of selected endpoints during the initial resuscitation of severe sepsis patients with immediate treatment response, mortality rates, functional patient outcomes and patients' quality of life asessed at the intervals of 90, 180, 360 or 720 days after the diagnosis of severe sepsis,
• assessing costs of health care provided to patients with severe sepsis, based on payments data provided by health care payers,
• selection of parametric records with valuable educational contents and subsequent development of educational case reports intended for an on-line publication on the internet.

Other important information:

• Expert guarantors: leading Czech anaesthesiologists and other specialists
• Funding: AstraZeneca Czech Republic Ltd.