The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) advocates use of a national data collection tool to measure compliance with treatment guidelines for severe sepsis. Some facilities utilize a Sepsis Response Team (SRT) to manage sepsis; however, their effectiveness has not been published. Purpose: Provide information to aid in the design of an appropriate study methodology, develop a multidisciplinary research team, create a paper data collection tool, utilize the SCCM data collection tool, and develop resource expectations needed to perform larger-scale studies. Setting: 760-bed tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: This feasibility study describes the process to form a multidisciplinary research team, select patients, create a paper data collection form, utilize the SCCM tool, and retrospectively collect data from 20 patient charts, 10 treated by a SRT and 10 treated by individual prescribers. Results: Mean hours required for chart abstraction dropped significantly as the team gained experience with the abstraction process. Several SCCM data points were subjective, requiring a team consensus of definitions to maintain consistency. A difference in mean age between groups was identified. Other confounding variables that may be encountered in a larger-scale study were identified and are discussed. Conclusion: Large-scale studies evaluating efficacy of a SRT using the SCCM tool, will likely require significant resources and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers. A case-matched study design may be needed to mitigate population differences.