Over 45% of sepsis patients had clinician-based encounters in the week prior to hospitalization with an increasing frequency of diagnoses for acute infection and antibiotic use in the outpatient setting. These presepsis encounters offer several potential opportunities to improve the recognition, risk stratification, and treatment prior to sepsis hospitalization. We quantified clinician-based encounters in each of the 7 days preceding sepsis admission, as well as on the day of admission, and categorized them as: hospitalization, subacute nursing facility, emergency department, urgent care, primary care, and specialty care. We identified the proportion of encounters with diagnoses for acute infection based on 28 single-level Clinical Classification Software categories.

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