Downplay Sepsis at Your Peril

Consequences of Sepsis

Sepsis is expensive. Just how expensive was addressed in another new study which found that sepsis is one of the most costly adverse events in children’s hospitals, and the authors of the study say that their findings target sepsis as a key intervention for hospitals.

“Among the areas in which children’s hospitals can address quality improvement, it is important to set priorities. This study provides some guidance,” says study leader Samir S. Shah, MD, an infectious diseases specialist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

According to the study, published in the June 2008 issue of Pediatrics, the researchers analyzed information from more than 430,000 discharges from 38 pediatric hospitals in the United States that participated in the Pediatric Health Information Systems database in 2006. They searched the database for 12 different adverse patient safety events, designated pediatric-specific quality indicators (PDIs) by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The adverse events included infections and other complications that occurred as unintended consequences of treatment and hospitalization.

The total number of adverse events was 6,656, or approximately 1.5 percent of the sample. Overall, the most frequent adverse events in hospitalized children were infection due to medical care, respiratory failure following surgery and postoperative sepsis (an infection in the bloodstream).

The excess length of hospital stay from PDI events ranged from 2.8 days for accidental puncture and laceration to 23.5 days for postoperative sepsis. Excess overall charges ranged from $34,884 for accidental puncture and laceration to $337,226 for in-hospital mortality after pediatric heart surgery. Among excess charges, the largest were for laboratory, room and nursing charges. The researchers adjusted charges to reflect geographical differences in prices and wages.