An Epidemic of Septicemia?

By AL LEWIS While prevention efforts have largely been focused on chronic disease, spurred in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) insistence that 86% of healthcare dollars are spent on patients with chronic illness, it turns out that the largest, fastest-growing and possibly most preventable diagnosis is arguably the most acute diagnosis of all: septicemia. Septicemia is any persistent systemic blood-borne bacterial infection, generally caused by contamination from an invasion of the bloodstream by an outside pathogen, and generally not easily addressed with antibiotics. Its many complications include death, 13% of the time. (There is some confusion about the various definitions of and distinctions among sepsis, septicemia and septic shock.) The Statistics The statistics below are drawn from the Agency for Health Research and Quality’s Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) database, and as such are easily replicated by entering ICD-9 “038.9” as “principal diagnosis.” The most recent year available, 2013, is the source of the screenshots. According to the most recent statistic available, septicemia is not only #1 in total spending, but it’s also almost twice as costly as the next-highest ICD9. Taking the long view yields an even more concerning picture.  This is the same analysis, run for 1999 — the year the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human, bringing errors and infections into the public consciousness....
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs