Increasing sepsis survivorship creates new challenges

Thirty-day hospital readmission rates modestly declined from 26.4% to 23.1% over that time period, driven by reduced readmissions among survivors of nonsevere and nonpneumonia sepsis, Dr. Mikkelsen said. This decline in overall sepsis patient readmissions was offset by an increase in emergency department treat-and-release visits. Such visits rose from 2.8% in 2010 to a peak of 5.4% in 2014, Dr. Mikkelsen explained. Generally, readmission rates for severe sepsis patients have not changed over time, he added.

“I anticipate that each and every hospital represented in this room will experience a similar phenomenon,” he said. “Therefore, high quality postdischarge care is in fact urgently needed,” he added. “It is warranted that there is an international spotlight on sepsis beginning in the hospital but now continuing thereafter into the phase of life after sepsis.”

These findings reflect “great sepsis survivorship” and suggest new challenges to address, said Timothy G. Buchman, MD, PhD, editor-in-chief of the Critical Care Medicine and past president of the Society for Critical Care Medicine.

“It’s really extraordinary to see that the efforts that have been made by the Surviving Sepsis campaign have paid off,” Dr. Buchman said in an interview. “Now we need to look much more carefully at both the readmission issues, as well as the consequences of long-term sepsis survivorship, not just on patients, but also on their families.”

Dr. Mikkelsen and a study coauthor received support for article research from the National Institutes of Health.

SOURCE: Meyer N et al. Crit Care Med. 2018 Mar. doi: 10.1097/CCM. 0000000000002872.