Demographic Undertones for Sepsis Mortality in a Community-Based Hospital

BACKGROUND: Sepsis continues to take main stage in healthcare. Therefore, it remains crucial to elucidate contributors to sepsis mortality. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of race, insurance type, and code status on sepsis mortality in a community health system. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of inpatient adults of any sex, race, and insurance type with a diagnosis of sepsis, severe sepsis, septic shock, or pneumonia. RESULTS: We included 913 patients, with an average age of 69 years for expired patients and 62 years for non-expiring patients (P < 0.0001). After controlling for other variables, patients who presented as comfort care arrest were 4.3 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.8 to 9.9, P = 0.0007) times more likely to have died than full code patients. Those who were comfort care only were 10.6 (95% CI: 0.8 to 140.6, P = 0.0741) times more likely to have died than the full code, although this was not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that patients who are comfort care arrest have an increased risk of sepsis mortality. The results show no impact of insurance type or race on sepsis mortality, which is in contrast to some existing literature. The study suggests that institutions may need to investigate internal variables related to sepsis mortality.