JAMA-Prevalence, Underlying Causes, and Preventability of Sepsis-Associated Mortality in US Acute Care Hospitals

Prevalence, Underlying Causes, and Preventability of Sepsis-Associated Mortality in US Acute Care Hospitals

Question  What is the prevalence of sepsis-associated mortality in US acute care hospitals and how preventable are these deaths?

Findings  In this cohort study reviewing the medical records of 568 patients who were admitted to 6 hospitals and died in the hospital or were discharged to hospice and not readmitted, sepsis was present in 300 hospitalizations (52.8%) and directly caused death in 198 cases (34.9%). However, most underlying causes of death were related to severe chronic comorbidities and only 3.7% of sepsis-associated deaths were judged definitely or moderately preventable.

Here's Why Roughly Half of All Hospital Deaths Could Be Related to Sepsis

Sepsis is the leading cause of death to hospitalized patients, but to bring down the sepsis-related mortality rate, prevention and care of other major contributing factors would need to change significantly, according to new research published Friday in JAMA Open Network.

Sepsis is a life-threatening infection individuals can develop during hospitalizations, affecting roughly 1.7 million adults in the U.S. annually. Among those infected, sepsis may potentially contribute to more than a quarter of a million deaths. But it’s not truly known how pervasive sepsis is, which is why researchers undertook a study to assess the prevalence, common underlying causes, and preventability of sepsis.

‘Literally rotted to death’: Ex-nursing home workers face neglect charges in 2 deaths

COLUMBUS, OH (WBNS/CNN) - Seven former nursing home nurses face charges in the death of two patients in 2017.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the charges stem from patient neglect and inadequate care at Whetstone Gardens and Care Center he called “gut-wrenching."

They were indicted by a grand jury and face 34 charges overall, including manslaughter and gross patient neglect.

It was so bad, one man literally rotted to death.

Medicare would provide national coverage for CAR-T cancer therapies under new proposal

Medicare would provide national coverage for CAR-T cancer therapies under new proposal

WASHINGTON — Under a new proposal, the Medicare program would pay for expensive new cancer therapies known as CAR-T for patients across the country.

Advocates for physician assisted suicide dismiss opposition from Catholic Church

ALBANY — With New York having strengthened and expanded abortion rights and set to pass the Child Victims Act over Church objections, the state Catholic Conference headed by Timothy Cardinal Dolan is now prioritizing blocking a bill to legalize physician assisted suicide.

Disabled people like me fear legal assisted suicide suggests that some lives are less worth living

Disabled people like me fear legal assisted suicide suggests that some lives are less worth living

Disabled people look to doctors to help us live, not to help us die.

By Baroness Jane Campbell, a  founding member of the disability rights group, Not Dead Yet UK.

Many terminally ill and disabled people oppose assisted suicide.

Not a single organisation of, or for, disabled people, or one representing people with long term health conditions has campaigned for assisted suicide to be legalised.

Dr Will Johnston: It has become too easy to end patients' lives.

Dr Will Johnston: It has become too easy to end patients' lives.

As an ordinary Canadian family physician, I have seen a different side of the new ‘Medical Aid in Dying’ regime Dr. Sandy Buchman glowingly describes. The scheme was sold to us and the public as a rare matter of assisting the suicide of extreme terminal illness cases. By a year into it, hundreds (now thousands) had died and over 99% of the deaths were not by self-administration, but intravenously by doctors and nurses. The Canadian euthanasia death rate has continued to escalate, while funding for palliative care services has fallen in several provinces.