Infections Erode Hospital Profits Many hospital administrators say they can¡¯t afford to take these precautions. The truth is, they can¡¯t afford not to. Infections erode hospital profits, because rarely are hospitals fully paid for the added weeks or months patients must spend in the hospital when they get an infection. For example:
Pennsylvania¡¯s Allegheny Hospital would have made a profit treating a
37-year old video programmer and father of four who was admitted with acute pancreatitis, but the economics changed when the patient developed a MRSA bloodstream infection. He had to stay in the hospital 86 days, and the hospital lost $41,813.25 Pittsburgh¡¯s Shadyside Hospital tamed a MRSA outbreak and saved ten dollars for every dollar spent on improving hygiene, testing patients, and isolating those with MRSA. Infections add more than $30 billion annually to the nation¡¯s health costs. The tab will increase rapidly, as more infections become drug-resistant. Additional research on the cost of infections shows that: ¡ö Post surgical wound infections more than double a patient¡¯s hospital costs. When a patient develops an infection after surgery, the cost of care increases 119 percent, on average, at a teaching hospital, and 101 percent at a community hospital. ¡ö Urinary tract infections increase a patient¡¯s hospital costs by 47 percent at a teaching hospital and 35 percent at a community hospital. ¡ö The average ventilator-associated pneumonia infection (a type 5 An estimated 2,000,000 infections per year X $15,27529 (Additional hospital costs when a patient contracts an infection)=$30.5 Billion per year spent treating hospital infections This figure does not include doctors¡¯ bills, home nursing bills, home nursing care, lost time at work, and other non-hospital costs.) of infection contracted when a patient is on a respirator) adds $40,000 to a patient¡¯s hospital costs. ¡ö A central catheter-related bloodstream infection increases a patient¡¯s hospital costs by about $30,000 on average. ¡ö Staphylococcus aureus infections are especially costly. According to a recent nationwide study, patients with Staph infections incur hospital costs that amount to more than triple the average hospital costs of other patients. If the cost is not enough to motivate hospital leaders to improve infection controls, they now face two other pressures. One is from the trial lawyers. Remember asbestos? Hospital infection is the next asbestos. The infection problem has all the hot button essentials of a successful class action lawsuit: two million helpless victims a year, copious evidence that infections are preventable, and a consistent pattern of failure to act. Secondly, hospitals in many states will soon be compelled to come clean about their infection rates. Six states¡ªFlorida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, and Virginia¡ªrecently enacted laws to provide the public with risk-adjusted hospital infection report cards, and several other states are poised to follow. |
