A recent study found patients with a sepsis diagnosis who were discharged to home health care, skilled nursing facilities or home had higher readmission rates.
The study, published Sept. 1 in the American Journal of Critical Care, culled data from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV, a publicly available single-hospital database of electronic medical record data on individuals admitted to Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center between 2008 and 2019. The study sampled 7,107 adult patients with at least one initial admission with diagnosis of sepsis and/or septic shock who survived to be discharged.
Discharge setting and age were significantly associated with readmission, the study found. Remission rates for patients were 29.6% for those discharged to a skilled nursing facility, 26.9% for those discharged to home health care and 15% for those discharged directly to home. Of those readmitted, 30% returned to the hospital between one and three times. The most common readmission diagnoses were related to infection, with 68.3% including another episode of sepsis.
"We must find ways to close the gap between hospitals and all discharge settings if we wish to continue to improve the odds of surviving sepsis," co-author Priscilla Hartley, DNP, RN, assistant professor at Augusta University in Athens, Ga., said in a Sept. 3 news release.