Section of Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician-scientist Halden Scott worked with a team of over 50 named authors and collaborative investigators to produce the first Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes (IPSO) manuscript.

IPSO sepsis definitions released in "Evaluating Pediatric Sepsis Definitions Designed for Electronic Health Record Extraction and Multicenter Quality Improvement" demonstrated feasibility for large-scale data abstraction. The definitions also indicated strengths in content validity, convergent construct validity, and criterion validity; with some weakness in reliability.

The patients identified through the IPSO definitions provide important information about children treated for sepsis. When operationalized, these definitions enabled multicenter identification and data aggregation, indicating practical utility for quality improvement.

Improving Pediatric Sepsis Outcomes is a national collaborative led by the Children's Hospital Association that aims to reduce sepsis-attributable mortality and improve survivor outcomes through early identification and timely treatment.