Study: Most hospital-onset sepsis cases go unreported

Thirteen percent of hospital-onset sepsis cases met U.S. criteria for reportable healthcare-associated infections, underscoring a significant gap in the surveillance system, according to a JAMA Network Open study. The authors state an expanded surveillance system and expanding opportunities for quality improvement could catch some of these events, many of which are “highly morbid and often preventable.” The authors used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Adult Sepsis Event criteria to identify hospital-onset sepsis. They analyzed 558,037 patients at nine Mass General Brigham (Boston) hospitals between January 2021 and December 2023. Respiratory infections comprised 56% of infection-related events, with primary bloodstream infections and intra-abdominal infections following at 17% and 15%, respectively. Physicians evaluating 100 cases to determine if they were preventable deemed 31% “potentially preventable.” (Becker’s Hospital Review article, 9/23/26)