Timing of antibiotic administration and lactate measurement in septic shock patients: a comparison between hospital wards and the emergency department Veerapong Vattanavanit,1 Theerapat Buppodom,2 Bodin Khwannimit1 1Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Critical Care Medicine, 2Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand Background: The timing of intravenous antibiotic administration and lactate measurement is associated with survival of septic shock patients. Septic shock patients were admitted to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) from 2 major sources: hospital ward and emergency department (ED). This study aimed to compare the timing of antibiotic administration and lactate measurement between hospital wards and the ED.Patients and methods: Medical data were collected from adult patients admitted to the MICU with septic shock from January 2015 to December 2016. “Time Zero” was defined as the time of diagnosis of sepsis. The associations between the times and risk-adjusted 28-day mortality were assessed. Results: In total, 150 septic shock patients were admitted to the MICU. The median time interval (hour [h] interquartile range [IQR]) from time zero to antibiotic administration was higher in patients from the hospital wards compared to those from the ED (4.84 [3.5–8.11] vs 2.04 [1.37–3.54], P<0.01), but the lactate level measurement time interval (h [IQR]) from time zero was not different between the hospital wards and the ED (1.6 [0.2–2.7] vs 1.6 [0.9–3.0],