Don’t try and go it alone! Form a project team to help ensure success and sustain your change efforts. Your team should be multidisciplinary and include people with different skill sets, knowledge areas and perspectives. Team members will differ depending on the size of your facility.
Don’t forget to identify and recruit a project sponsor who has executive authority and can provide approval for changes, facilitate access to resources and help overcome any barriers.
Work with your team to agree on meeting schedules, communication, timelines, actions and responsibilities.
Responsibilities
The table below provides guidance about who should be included in your project team.
Core team
| Project sponsor | Has executive authority and can provide approval for changes, facilitate access to resources and help overcome barriers. |
| Project lead | Coordinates the project timeline and team, and has an interest in sepsis or experience with quality improvement initiatives or research. The project lead is the primary contact for the project and reports on progress to executive sponsors. This role fits within the national Sepsis Clinical Care Standard Sepsis Coordinator. Refer to the coordination of sepsis program activities and responsibilities on page 3. |
| Sepsis champion (nursing) |
Ensures the clinical requirements (including policies) meet standards. Acts as a clinical champion for the change among the nursing cohort. The nursing sepsis champion facilitates the successful implementation of the paediatric sepsis bundle of care, promotes the use of the Pathway, provides education at the point of care, addresses issues and gives feedback to the project lead. |
| Sepsis champion (medical) | Provides medical expertise and leadership particularly during the initial planning phases. This role influences the medical teams in accepting the use of the Paediatric Sepsis Pathway. This position is vital to ensuring the medical team is educated about current best practice for paediatric sepsis treatment. |
| Sepsis champion (pharmacy) | Ensures clinical requirements (including policies) meet standards. Acts as a clinical champion for the change among the pharmacy cohort and champions optimal AMS practice and engagement. |
Consider including other positions in your team such as:
- Nurses
- Clinical nurse consultant, nurse practitioner, Nurse navigator
- Social worker or psychosocial teams, important for post-sepsis support
- Consumer representative
- Patient safety officer, quality and safety manager or clinical governance representative
- Educators, clinical practice facilitator
- Medical officer, paediatrician, emergency department physician
- Infectious disease physician or AMS team
- Administration officer
- Digital clinician, ieMR representative, data analyst.
Engagement with an established AMS service at, or external to, your facility will ensure the continued appropriateness of antimicrobial choices within the Pathway.
Linking with infectious diseases physicians, antimicrobial pharmacists and microbiologists will ensure the most effective antimicrobials are used to treat confirmed infections, and prompt antimicrobial reviews are conducted for patients who do not have sepsis.
It can be challenging to undertake project work when you have a clinical caseload. Consider including clinical and non-clinical staff in your team to share the tasks and ensure the project can be delivered successfully.
Each team member should have defined roles and responsibilities.
Practicalities
It is also important to consider the practicalities of pathway implementation. For example
- Printed Sepsis Pathway Forms (for non-digital sites)
- Who is responsible for ordering more when stock is low? Refer to How to order the paper pathway form
- Who will manage version control?
- Location, location, location
- Do you have a dedicated place for your Sepsis Pathway Forms?
- Do all relevant nursing and medical staff know where to locate the form?
- Do you have a dedicated place for family resources including postcards and family support network flyers. You can request these resources from paediatricsepsis@health.qld.gov.au
- Capturing data and measuring improvement
- Do you have a process to track patients who are screened or treated using the Pathway? Use the tracking sheet to manage this information.
- All paper pathways (complete or incomplete) should be scanned into the electronic medical record. Who is responsible for this in your area? How frequently are these sent to medical records for scanning?
- How will you measure any improvements?
- Who will be responsible for measuring any improvements?
Download the Responsibilities and practicalities template and complete this for your team.