Public Report & Risk-adjusted Mortality
The Adult New York State sepsis process of care measures were developed using a National Quality Forum (NQF) measure for guidance: NQF #500 Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock: Management Bundle. These measures, reported as statewide and hospital-specific rates, reflect several key processes of care that can increase the probability of surviving an episode of sepsis. There is one important outcome measure, mortality, included in this report. Statewide mortality rates and hospital-specific risk adjusted mortality rates are reported. NYSDOH releases sepsis data to public each year.
The use of sepsis protocols and measures of protocol adherence are important to patients because of their impact on improvement in the probability of survival. In order to fairly compare hospitals on the critical outcome of survival, risk adjustment was used to account for differences in the characteristics of the hospitals' populations of sepsis patients, since patient characteristics can impact the risk of dying from sepsis. Risk adjustment takes into account accompanying chronic illnesses that can complicate treatment and outcomes for patients with sepsis, patient demographic factors such as age, and the severity of sepsis for each patient. The risk-adjusted mortality rate represents the best estimate, after accounting for these factors, of what the hospital's mortality rate would have been if the hospital had a mix of patients identical to the statewide mix. Risk adjusted mortality describes the 'risk adjusted' percentage of all patients with sepsis at each hospital who died during that hospital stay.
Each year, the New York State Department of Health publishes a report of updated data from the New York State Sepsis Care Improvement Initiative. The reports contain results for hospitals' use of sepsis protocols to identify and treat adults and children with sepsis, hospitals' adherence to time-dependent key interventions to treat sepsis, and risk adjusted mortality rates (for adults) for each reporting hospital in New York State (NYS): https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/conditions/sepsis/#rpts.