Prevalence and Clinical Characteristics of Patients With Sepsis Discharge Diagnosis Codes and Short Lengths of Stay in U.S. Hospitals

Abstract

In this large U.S. cohort, one in 10 patients coded for sepsis were discharged alive within 3 days. Although most short stay patients met systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria, they met Sepsis-3 criteria less than half the time. Our findings underscore the incomplete uptake of Sepsis-3 definitions, the breadth of illness severities encompassed by both traditional and new sepsis definitions, and the possibility that some patients with sepsis recover very rapidly.