Is Sepsis Incidence and Mortality Changing in U.S. Hospitals?

Is Sepsis Incidence and Mortality Changing in U.S. Hospitals?:

Recent studies of claims data suggest that the incidence of sepsis in hospitals is increasing and sepsis-related mortality is declining. However, such data might be affected by incentivized coding practices — a “sepsis” diagnosis code might raise a hospital's reimbursement amount — which would overestimate the incidence of sepsis in hospitals. Study authors used electronic health records and administrative data (on >7 million hospitalized adults in >400 U.S. hospitals from 2009 to 2014) from a diverse group of healthcare systems to determine annual sepsis incidence and mortality burden (based on Sepsis-3 definitions; NEJM JW Gen Med Mar 15 2016 and JAMA 2016; 315:775).