We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
This journal utilises an Online Peer Review Service (OPRS) for submissions. By clicking "Continue" you will be taken to our partner site
http://www.editorialmanager.com/iche/default.aspx.
Please be aware that your Cambridge account is not valid for this OPRS and registration is required. We strongly advise you to read all "Author instructions" in the "Journal information" area prior to submitting.
To save this undefined to your undefined account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your undefined account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
While society would benefit from a reduced incidence of nosocomial infections, there is currently no direct reimbursement to hospitals for the purpose of infection control, which forces healthcare institutions to make economic decisions about funding infection control activities. Demonstrating value to administrators is an increasingly important function of the hospital epidemiologist because healthcare executives are faced with many demands and shrinking budgets. Aware of the difficulties that face local infection control programs, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Board of Directors appointed a task force to draft this evidence-based guideline to assist hospital epidemiologists in justifying and expanding their programs. In Part 1, we describe the basic steps needed to complete a business-case analysis for an individual institution. A case study based on a representative infection control intervention is provided. In Part 2, we review important basic economic concepts and describe approaches that can be used to assess the financial impact of infection prevention, surveillance, and control interventions, as well as the attributable costs of specific healthcare-associated infections. Both parts of the guideline aim to provide the hospital epidemiologist, infection control professional, administrator, and researcher with the tools necessary to complete a thorough business-case analysis and to undertake an outcome study of a nosocomial infection or an infection control intervention.
To estimate the cost of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in a network of 28 community hospitals and to compare this sum to the amount budgeted for infection control programs at each institution and for the entire network.
Design.
We reviewed literature published since 1985 to estimate costs for specific HAIs. Using these estimates, we determined the costs attributable to specific HAIs in a network of 28 hospitals during a 1-year period (January 1 through December 31, 2004). Cost-saving models based on reductions in HAIs were calculated.
Setting.
Twenty-eight community hospitals in the southeastern region of the United States.
Results.
The weight-adjusted mean cost estimates for HAIs were $25,072 per episode of ventilator-associated pneumonia, $23,242 per nosocomial blood stream infection, $10,443 per surgical site infection, and $758 per catheter-associated urinary tract infection. The median annual cost of HAIs per hospital was $594,683 (interquartile range [IQR], $299,057-$l,287,499). The total annual cost of HAIs for the 28 hospitals was greater than $26 million. Hospitals budgeted a median of $129,000 (IQR, $92,500-$200,000) for infection control; the median annual cost of HAIs was 4.6 (IQR, 3.4-8.0) times the amount budgeted for infection control. An annual reduction in HAIs of 25% could save each hospital a median of $148,667 (IQR, $74,763-$296,861) and could save the group of hospitals more than $6.5 million.
Conclusions.
The economic cost of HAIs in our group of 28 study hospitals was enormous. In the modern age of infection control and patient safety, the cost-control ratio will become the key component of successful infection control programs.
