The Surviving Sepsis Campaign guidelines 2012: update for emergency physicians.

The Surviving Sepsis Campaign recently developed and published an updated version in 2012 of the international guidelines for the assessment and management of severe sepsis and septic shock. These guidelines reflect literature published in the last 5 years, and many of the recommendations have direct implications for emergency physicians. In this review, we present a concise summary of these recommendations, with a particular focus on those that have changed and those that have direct relevance to the clinical practice of emergency medicine.