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The cost of sepsis in New Zealand (thread)
@ACCNZ found 1250 treatment injury claims registered with keywords “sepsis”/“septicaemia” from 2015-2020. 100 were fatal. Information about payments against these claims has been provided under the OIA https://catalogue.data.govt.nz/dataset/27734c96-0bb9-422f-8706-47d39499dee2/resource/c639074e-16bb-4be0-92cd-24ee5bb8e657/download/gov-007533-response.pdf
1219 of these claims led to a payment for compensation, rehabilitation or treatment. These average out at $21,608 per claim (to date) BUT.....
ACC bulk funds acute care, so these costs don’t include urgent admissions for sepsis diagnosis and treatment- what do these admissions cost our health system? Read on...
Back in 2005, Burns et al found the EXCESS cost of a hospital acquired bloodstream infection was $20,000 https://assets-global.website-files.com/5e332a62c703f653182faf47/5e332a62c703f602932fda03_burns.pdf
Today in @NZMedJ, Huggan et al report that 1:4 admissions to NZ hospitals in 2016 were for infections which can lead to sepsis (paywalled). https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/counting-the-cost-of-major-infection-and-sepsis-in-new-zealand-an-exploratory-study-using-the-national-minimum-data-set
The median reimbursement for admissions associated with “major infection” was $6,822, with a further $374 million spent on readmitting a quarter of these patients to an acute hospital within 30 days. But what about infections that led to SEPSIS?
The authors were able to identify a subset of cases with sepsis (approx 1800). In this group, infection was the primary reason for admission to hospital AND a separate sepsis-associated organ failure was documented. Cost...?
...aside from an estimated 22% ICU admission rate and 18% in-hospital death...
....$10,381 (and a further 10k for for the 11% readmitted within 30 days). So...the best information we have suggests that sepsis costs the health system 10k up front and maybe 20k in additional treatment and rehabilitation over the next 5 years....
The best published estimate of sepsis incidence in a high income country comes from Sweden, where 800/100,000 population receive antibiotics in hospital for sepsis each year https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0225700
What would that mean for the team of 5 million? Between $0.4-1.2 BILLION committed to the acute care and 5 year follow-up of everyone who gets sepsis this year (40,000 people x 10-30k per case). ..
...and that’s WITHOUT an epidemic of #COVID19 and its #LongCovid syndrome....
...which is a very long tweet to say that in addition to the toll of human suffering, infections which lead to sepsis are REALLY EXPENSIVE..
..and we don’t have a great track record of investing in infection research, prevention, treatment or support for post-sepsis care @SiouxsieW https://i.stuff.co.nz/science/109139402/siouxsie-wiles-funding-research-is-disheartening
So Sepsis is a massive burden, which has been hiding in plain sight whilst health inequalities widen and infectious disease admissions increase over time, affecting Maaori, Pacific people and those experiencing deprivation the hardest https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673611617807.pdf
..we definitetly need a National plan http://Sepsis.org.nz/action ...
..and it would be great if you could help increase awareness or even support us. Start by checking out the information on our website or @healthnavnz and sharing it with a friend. It might just save a life (and maybe a few dollars). https://www.healthnavigator.org.nz/health-a-z/s/sepsis/
