New study: Opportunity costs of infections in hospitals

Nosocomial infections (NI), often referred to as hospital-acquired infections, not only worsen patient outcomes through increased mortality and reduced health-related quality of life. They also represent a considerable economic burden for healthcare systems and hospitals. In our new study, we analysed routine data from a hospital's controlling department to determine the opportunity costs of NI. To do this, we compared the actual revenue generated by patients with NI with the potential revenue generated by patients without NI. This is done under the assumption that by avoiding NI, the beds tied up as a result could be utilised differently, namely for the treatment of "normal" patients without such infections. The result shows that NIs represent a considerable financial burden for hospitals. This emphasises the need to introduce effective infection prevention measures in order to both improve the health of hospital patients and reduce the financial burden on hospitals through lost revenue.

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-024-10176-8