Early Sepsis Diagnosis Reduces Mortality, Health Care Costs
Individuals whose sepsis is not diagnosed until after hospital admission, and those who have an illness of increasing severity, tend to have a higher mortality rate, according to a new study.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed data from the Premier Healthcare Database, which represents approximately 20% of US inpatient discharges among private and academic hospitals.
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Participants were aged older than 18 years and had received a hospital discharge diagnosis code of sepsis from January 1, 2010, to September 30, 2016. In all, there were 2,566,689 participants.
Overall, the mortality rate among the participants was 12.5%. However, this varied greatly depending on the severity of the illness: 5.6% for sepsis without organ dysfunction, 14.9% for severe sepsis, and 34.2% for septic shock.
After reviewing billing records, the researchers also determined the hospital cost of sepsis. Like the mortality rate, this too increased with severity: $16,324 for sepsis without organ dysfunction, $24,638 for severe sepsis, and $38,298 for septic shock.
Sepsis that was present at admission had a significantly lower cost than when sepsis was not present at admission ($18,023 vs $51,022).
According to the researchers, the highest burden of incidence and total costs occurred in the lowest severity sepsis cohort population.
“Methods to improve early identification of sepsis may provide opportunities for reducing the severity and economic burden of sepsis in the United States,” the researchers concluded.
—Colleen Murphy
Reference:
Paoli CJ, Reynolds MA, Sinha M, Gitlin M, Crouser E. Epidemiology and costs of sepsis in the United States—an analysis based on timing of diagnosis and severity level. Crit Care Med. 2018;46(12):1889-1897. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000003342.