Medical Centers Caring for High Volume of Sepsis Patients Have Lower Mortality Rates

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine revealed that patients with severe sepsis admitted at academic medical centers that care for more patients with the same infection, have lower mortality rate than patients admitted in other hospitals.

Published in the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the study revealed that patients with severe sepsis may receive better outcomes at medical centers that take care of many sepsis patients. Also, the superior outcomes at high volume centers were achieved at same cost compared to the medical center with low volume of patients.

The study was led by Allan J. Walkey, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine, BUSM, and attending physician, pulmonary, critical care and allergy medicine, Boston Medical Center.

The researchers worked on the data taken from the academic hospitals across the country, provided by the University HealthSystem Consortium. On analyzing the data, researchers noticed that there were 56,997 patients with severe sepsis admitted to 124 academic hospitals in 2011. For these patients, the median length of stay was 12.5 days and the median direct cost for each was $26,304.

This revealed that the mortality rate at hospitals taking care for a high volume of sepsis patients was seven percent less when compared to hospitals with lower volume of patients. The mortality rate at the high volume hospital was 22 percent and that of the lower volume hospital was 29 percent.

Sepsis is a severe life threatening disease that occurs when the body overreacts to a bacterial infection.  Sepsis is also referred to as blood poisoning.  It is treated with intravenous antibiotics and therapy to support the organ dysfunction. Death occurs mainly due to multiorgan dysfunction mainly liver, kidney or lung infection.

Walkey concluded saying, "Given the lack of new drugs to treat severe sepsis, medical professionals must look at other ways to increase patient safety and positive outcomes, including the process of how we deliver care. Our study results demonstrate that hospitals with more experience caring for patients with severe sepsis were able to achieve better outcomes than hospitals with less experience with sepsis, possibly due to better processes of care for patients with sepsis."