The economic evaluation

This economic evaluation has been prepared with reference to the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) Checklist [17]. All costs are presented in Australian dollars (AUD) 2018/19. The primary economic evaluation took a healthcare sector perspective, and the secondary evaluation took an expanded healthcare sector perspective which included the Victorian State Government costs of Sepsis Pathway implementation.

This economic evaluation examined both the cost and effect of implementing the Sepsis Pathway. The cost included health service expenditure for patients with an episode of care linked to sepsis as well as costs borne by the Victorian State Government’s Department of Health and Human Services through the BCV Innovation Fund which provided governance and project support for implementation of the scaling collaborative. The primary clinical effect included mortality and the primary process evaluation effect was adherence to the Sepsis Pathway in routine care. The choice of these outcome measures was influenced by the 2016/17 BCV funded pilot study at Melbourne Health (Victoria, Australia) which reported that the introduction of a Sepsis Pathway (effect = adherence to the key elements) improved mortality (effect = mortality) and reduced length of stay (component of cost) and intensive care unit ICU admissions (component of cost) [10].