SUMMARY

• Sepsis remains one of the costliest hospital conditions.
• Globally, average total hospital costs per patient varies greatly from €1,101 to €91,951.
• The healthcare budget by country spent of sepsis also varied dramatically based on % of GDP.

REVIEW

• Despite being the most frequent and costliest principal diagnosis, accurate estimates of the economic burden of sepsis at a national level is not known.

• Several factors limit the ability to evaluate and compare sepsis expenditures between countries:
  • Costs from 1 country cannot be extrapolated to another country
  • Existing data is typically outdated
  • Sepsis is a major global health priority
• Recently, 20 published studies (16 studies with results) from January 2010 to January 2020 were reviewed to estimate the economic burden of sepsis by country.
  • Some countries had more than 1 study.
  •  The cost ranges within the country ranged by a factor of approximately 4.5
• Similar results were seen with sepsis costs per capita.

• Sepsis costs in general ward patients are reported to be higher than ICU patients
  • General Ward: Median = € 48,993
  • ICU: Median = € 22,635 (range 1,555 – 74,245

CONCLUSIONS

• Regardless of the amount spent, treatment of sepsis is consistently expensive globally.
• Intensity of care of individual patients does not reflect the cost of healthcare sepsis expenditures
• General ward costs are greater than ICU costs, most likely due the length of stay being longer on the ward than ICU and a large proportion of patients admitted to the general ward.

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Erkan Hassan is the Co-Founder & Chief Clinical Officer of Sepsis Program Optimization where he designs & oversees the implementation of solutions to optimize sepsis programs.

To discuss your organization’s Barriers of Effective Sepsis Care, contact Erkan by phone (844) 4SEPSIS (844-473-7747), email (erkan@spo.icu), or video chat.