June 2025 Pick of the Month

Disparities Still Matter

"This month’s pick, Decreased racial disparities in sepsis mortality after an order set–driven initiative: An analysis of 8151 patients by Fernandez Olivera et. al, provides  pragmatic data that indicate the use of a simple checklist can lead to patient-centered improvements in care delivery. Sepsis remains the subject of many quality initiatives and very few interventions improve survival. Many biotech companies have raised billions of dollars, searching for a drug, device, or system that improves mortality from sepsis. Most fail, abjectly. For this reason, sepsis has earned the moniker of “the killer of patients and biotech companies.” But in the work by Fernandez Olivera, the investigators show that in the post-implementation phase, a low-tech, low-cost intervention was associated with erasure of the increased mortality of Black patients observed in the pre-implementation phase. Another important point is that this paper addresses a racial disparity, and keeps us reminded that disparities still matter. Administrations may come and go, but equitable emergency care will remain a key objective of practitioners of emergency medicine."

Jeffrey A. Kline, MD
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Editor-in-Chief