Realizing the cost of hospital-acquired infections may incentivize hospitals to step-up infection control efforts, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers reviewed data from 1986 to 2013 on costs associated with individual HAIs and found the following costs on a per-case basis:
• Central-line associated bloodstream infections — $45,814
• Ventilator-associated pneumonia —$40,144
• Surgical site infections — $20,785
• C. difficle — $11,285
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections — $896
Researchers tabulated the annual HAI cost at $9.8 billion, with SSIs contributing most to costs (33.7 percent), followed by VAP (31.6 percent), CLABSI (18.9 percent), C. diff (15.4 percent) and CAUTI (less than 1 percent).
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