Costs of health care associated infection

Abstract

Key points:
* The costs of health care infections (HIAs) are difficult to measure and value.
* The costs are an important consideration for any decision to increase investment in infection control programs
* The greatest cost is bed days lost to infection within the hospital sector
* The value of these bed days depends on the need of the general population to access hospital services and the willingness of decision makers to pay for these services
* Based on the available data and a number of assumptions, it is estimated that almost two million bed days are lost to infection per year in Australia
* The data must be interpreted carefully because not all infections can be prevented
* There are also many private and difficult-to-value costs associated with infection: these include pain and suffering for patients and their families
Recommendation on costs of health care associated infections
1. The process of attributing costs to HAI should be expressed in terms of the number of bed days that are released by effective infection control programs as well as any savings in variable costs.