Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy

This new visualization illustrates the national burden of healthcare-associated sepsis and pneumonia, as well as the cost and mortality of these diseases when they were acquired following invasive surgery. Please visit the Tools section to download this graphic.

This infographic shows the burden of two healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in the United States in 2006. Pneumonia and sepsis, a bacterial infection that overwhelms the bloodstream, were associated with 2.3 million excess patient days, $8.1 billion added healthcare costs, and 43,000 avoidable deaths.

The graphic, based on a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, goes on to break down the burden of sepsis and pneumonia following invasive surgery, but there are also HAI costs and mortality associated with hospitalizations that do not involve invasive surgery.  According to estimates in the paper, the mean attributable cost of non-surgical associated conditions was $5,800-$12,700  for sepsis and $11,100-$22,300 for pneumonia.  Attributable mortality was found to be 11.7%-16.0% (sepsis) and 4.6%-10.3% (pneumonia).

Infographic source: Eber, Michael R., Laxminarayan, Ramanan, Perencevich, Eli N., and Anup Malani. 2010. Clinical and Economic Outcomes Attributable to Health Care-Associated Sepsis and Pneumonia. Archives of Internal Medicine. (170) 4: 347-353.