The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) recently concluded its 2026 Critical Care Congress in Chicago, Illinois. From March 22 through March 24, the 2026 Critical Care Congress was three days of critical care education and research presented by experts from around the world.

With nearly 1,800 abstracts presented at the 2026 Critical Care Congress, there was plenty of current research to discuss and digest for attendees. Today, we have a curated selection of abstracts that are focused on sepsis and topics related to sepsis. Some descriptions and conclusions were edited for clarity and brevity. The full list of abstracts and case reports from the 2026 SCCM annual meeting are available in the March 2026 issue of Critical Care Medicine.

Personalizing Blood Pressure Targets in Sepsis: External Validation of the Strive-Map AI System

  • Description: STRIVE-MAP is a machine learning-based decision support system that estimates the expected clinical benefit of different MAP levels by comparing ICU patients in real time with similar historical cases.
  • Conclusion: Under causal modelling assumptions, following the STRIVE-MAP policy was associated with lower marginal mortality risk compared with observed practice. This novel AI system estimates the expected benefit of personalized treatment targets based on historical patient data, avoiding untested AI recommendations and preserving interpretability and safety.

Elevated Renin is Associated with Poor Outcomes in Children with Sepsis and Acute Kidney Injury

  • Description: Renin-angiotensin system derangement, evidenced by elevated renin levels, is associated with poor outcomes in critically ill adults and children, but this association has not been assessed in pediatric sepsis-associated acute kidney injury.. [Researchers] hypothesized higher serum renin levels would be associated with poor outcomes in this population.
  • Conclusion: Children with early sepsis-associated acute kidney injury and elevated renin concentrations (T3) have worse outcomes. Renin levels may serve as a prognostic biomarker in this population, though larger studies are needed.

Development and Testing of a National Electronic Mortality Measure for Adults Community-Onset Sepsis

  • Description: [Researchers] developed a risk-adjustment model for community-onset (CO) sepsis mortality and assessed its discrimination, calibration, reliability, and validity using three large multi-hospital datasets.
  • Conclusion: CDC’s proposed Adult CO-Sepsis Mortality Measure, based on updated ASE criteria and detailed risk adjustment, demonstrated strong performance across diverse hospital datasets and construct validity through correlation with expected outcome and global quality measures. Its lack of correlation with SEP-1 underscores the need for broader strategies to improve sepsis care and the added value of an EHR-based outcome measure.

Following Lactic Acid Trends, Do They Reduce RRT to Codes? A Failure to Rescue Initiative

  • Description: Lactic acid (LA) is a marker for shock and worsening outcomes in hospitalized patients. It has been associated with increased mortality at any level in patients with sepsis. After a patient safety event, our Failure to Rescue Team (FTR) began to track LA > 7 as a measure to identify potential correlations with out-of-ICU (OOICU) failure.
  • Conclusion: Our team determined that a trigger based solely on LA was not suitable for our institution as an upgrade or RRT trigger. Developing a multidisciplinary approach to FTR reduction fostered a more collaborative relationship among all frontline staff, thereby enhancing HRO principles related to operational awareness and trust. 

Implementation of a Hospital Ward Sepsis Response Team in a Large Academic Medical Center

  • Description: Hospital-onset sepsis is associated with higher mortality than community-onset sepsis and often presents diagnostic and treatment delays in non-critical care hospital settings. Prior studies describing sepsis response teams have primarily focused on emergency department or intensive care unit populations. In 2022, [the researchers’] large academic medical center launched a dedicated Sepsis Emergency Response Team (SERT) to identify and treat early sepsis among patients on hospital wards (HWs).
  • Conclusion: A dedicated, APP-led sepsis response team operating on HWs can standardize and improve early sepsis care among hospitalized patients. Critical success factors include hybrid detection, iterative quality improvement, and multidisciplinary coordination. This model provides a framework to establish a response team focused on early, ward-based intervention for HW patients with sepsis.

Sign up for alerts and stay informed on the latest published guidelines and articles.