Elderly patients admitted to intensive care units who develop an infection during their stay are roughly 35 percent more likely to die within five years of leaving the hospital than elderly ICU patients that don't develop an infection, according to a study published in the journal of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.
Two of the most common healthcare-associated infections are central line-associated bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, and preventing these can save lives and money.
Researchers studied outcomes for 17,537 elderly Medicare patients admitted to 31 hospitals in 2002 to assess the cost and effectiveness of infection prevention efforts, as well as five additional years of Medicare claims data to assess the long-term outcomes and health costs attributed to HAIs.
They found 57 percent of all the elderly ICU patients died within five years but significantly more died if they had developed an HAI.
The five-year mortality rate was 75 percent for patients who developed CLABSIs and 77 percent for those who developed VAP, according to the study.
Effective prevention programs for CLABSIs — such as hand washing before handling catheters and immediately changing the dressing around the central line if it gets wet or dirty — resulted in an estimated gain of 15.55 years of life on average for all patients treated in the ICU.
Effective prevention efforts for VAP — such as keeping patients elevated in bed — resulted in an estimated gain of 10.84 years of life on average for ICU patients.
In addition to saving lives, infection prevention programs in the ICU — which have an ongoing cost of roughly $145,000 — saved hospital ICUs nearly $175,000 per patient for each instance of CLABSI, and more than $163,000 for each case of VAP.
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