Table 2.

Coding abstraction strategies for identification of sepsis status according to sepsis-1 in administrative health data

Coding abstraction strategy	Sepsis status	Definition
Explicit sepsis coding	Sepsis without organ dysfunction	Presence of any explicit ICD-10-GM sepsis codes with R57.2 and R65.1 not being present
	Sepsis with organ dysfunction without shock	Presence of ICD-10-GM R65.1 but not R57.2
	Septic shock	Presence of ICD-10-GM R57.2
	Sepsis with organ dysfunction including shock	Presence of ICD-10-GM R65.1 or R57.2
	Sepsis	Presence of any explicit ICD-10-GM sepsis code
Explicit sepsis coding and organ dysfunction codes	Sepsis with organ dysfunction including shock	Presence of any explicit ICD-10-GM sepsis code and any ICD-10-GM code for organ dysfunction
Implicit approach	Sepsis with organ dysfunction including shock	Presence of any ICD-10-GM code for infection and any ICD-10-GM code for organ dysfunction
Explicit sepsis coding and organ dysfunction codes including procedure codes	Sepsis with organ dysfunction including shock	Presence of any ICD-10-GM sepsis code and (any ICD-10-GM code for organ dysfunction or any OPS code for organ dysfunction*)
Implicit approach including procedure codes	Sepsis with organ dysfunction including shock	Presence of any ICD-10-GM code for infection and (any ICD-10-GM code for organ dysfunction or any OPS code for organ dysfunction*)

ICD-10-GM explicit sepsis codes, infection codes and codes for organ dysfunction are presented in online supplementary material 4.

*OPS codes for identification of organ dysfunctions will be identified before conduction of the main analyses and documented in the analyses plan.

ICD-10-GM, International Classification of Diseases, 10 Revision, German Modification; OPS, Operationen- und Prozedurenschlüssel (German classification of surgeries and procedures).