Hospital readmissions for sepsis are highly common, extremely costly

The Affordable Care Act created several national initiatives aimed at reducing hospital readmission rates for heart attacks, congestive heart failure and other common high-risk conditions. But there is still no national program intended to address sepsis, a potentially life-threatening illness caused by infection. Now, a new UCLA study found that sepsis accounts for roughly the same percentage of hospital readmissions in California as heart attacks and congestive heart failure — and that it costs the health care system more than both of them combined. The research, conducted by the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute is published online in the peer-reviewed journal Critical Care Medicine. "Our study shows how common sepsis readmissions are and some of the factors that are associated with higher risk of readmission after these severe infections," said Dr. Dong Chang, assistant professor of medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the study's lead author. "In addition, we show that sepsis readmissions have a significant impact on health care expenditures relative to other high-risk conditions that are receiving active attention and interventions. "Based on these results, we believe that sepsis readmissions are under-recognized and should be among the conditions that are targeted for intervention by policymakers." The researchers analyzed admissions for adults 18 and older for sepsis at all California hospitals from 2009 through 2011, and during the same period for congestive heart failure and heart attacks.