Incremental expenditure for hospital care associated infections

Abstract

Background: Hospital care associated infections [HAI] are time varying and they substantially increase the burden for the patients, relatives, Payers, Third party Administrators and Hospital Administrators. An incremental cost / expenditure is the difference in total costs as the result of a change in some activity. Objectives: To find out the incremental cost in the hospital and the total number of beds in each ward. Methods: Cross sectional retrospective data was collected for all the in - Patients admitted to Ramaiah Medical College Hospital for the period of 2013 to 2015 (3 years). To find out the incremental cost in the hospital, the total number of beds in each ward were taken into consideration. Extra cost calculated department wise for all different types of commonly occurring HAI. The wards of the hospital have been categorized into Medicine and Allied wards, Surgery and Allied wards, Intensive Care Units and Paediatrics wards and data was analysed using simple tabular form. Results: Incremental cost of different types of Health care associated infections calculated based on Medicine and Allied departments, Surgery and Allied departments, Paediatrics and Intensive care units. The incremental cost forover all Medicine and allied departments for urinary tract infections [UTI] - 3,995/-, Blood stream infections [BSI] - 7641/- and ventilator associated pneumonia [VAP] - 1386 /- per day / patient. The incremental cost for Surgery allied urinary tract infections [UTI] - 4832 /-, blood stream infections BSI - 9241 /-, ventilator associated pneumonia VAP - 1677/- and SSI - 336/- per day / patient. The incremental cost of Paediatrics UTI - 1677 /-, BSI - 12340 /- and VAP - 5284 /- per day / patient. Conclusion: The analysis showed that the incremental cost related to the health care associated infections was more common among the patients who had nosocomial infection when compared with the patients who had not suffered from any of the nosocomial infection.

Keywords

• Hospital Economics
• Cost benefit analysis
• Health expenditures
• Cost-Benefit Data