^a. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) software requires that the sepsis be reported as a secondary diagnosis (rather than the principal diagnosis), but unlike the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) software, the secondary diagnosis could be present on admission.  In addition, the sepsis is not verifiable as following surgery.  Consistent with the AHRQ Patient Safety Indicators (PSI) software, the following cases are excluded: admissions with a principal diagnosis of infection, admissions with cancer or in an immunocompromised state, and obstetric admissions.

^b. Rates are adjusted by age, gender, age-gender interactions, comorbidities, major diagnostic category (MDC), diagnosis-related group (DRG), and transfers into the hospital.  The AHRQ PSI software was modified to not use the present on admission (POA) indicators (or estimates of the likelihood of POA for secondary diagnosis). Rates prior to 2008 are not reported because of International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9-CM) coding changes.

DSU - Data do not meet the criteria for statistical reliability, data quality, or confidentiality.

DNC - Data were not collected.

Key: SE: Standard error.

Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Center for Delivery, Organization, and Markets, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) databases and AHRQ Quality Indicators, modified version 4.1.  State estimates are from the State Inpatient Databases (SID), and not all States participate in HCUP.  Estimates for the total United States are from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, which is drawn from the SID and weighted to give national estimates.