Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) represent a leading threat to patient safety, affecting 3% of hospitalized patients in the United States. In addition to their contribution to patient morbidity and mortality, HAIs impose a significant economic burden on healthcare systems. Nationally, estimates of the aggregate direct costs of HAIs range from US$7.2 to 45 billion annually. Much of this burden falls on community hospitals, which provide most of the inpatient care in the United States. However, current representations of the cost of HAIs on community hospitals are lacking. The DICON team estimated the attributable costs of select HAIs to a network of community hospitals in the southeastern United States.
The attributable cost of several healthcare-associated infections in a community hospital network was calculated: central-line–associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), hospital-onset Clostridioides difficile infections (CDI-HOs) (43 hospitals); surgical site infections (SSIs) (40 hospitals). From 2016 to 2022, the total cost of CLABSIs, CAUTIs, CDI-HOs, and SSIs was $420,012,025.
Read the full article in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.