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Surgical site infections related to significant excess costs

Among surgical patients at Veterans Affairs hospitals, the cost of treating patients who developed surgical site infections was 1.43 times greater than the cost for those without infections, according to study results published inJAMA Surgery.

“The take-home message is that surgical site infections are not only painful to the patient, they are also costly to hospitals,” Marin Schweizer, PhD, of the Iowa City VA Health Care System and the University of Iowa, toldInfectious Disease News. “It is important to know the amount that these infections cost so that business cases can be made for interventions to prevent them.”

Marin Schweizer, PhD

Marin Schweizer

Schweizer and colleagues evaluated the excess costsassociated with surgical site infections (SSIs), including deep and superficial SSIs, among 54,233 patients who underwent surgery at a VA hospital in fiscal year 2010. The mixed-effect models controlled for patient and surgical risk factors and for hospital-level variation in costs. The costs included the index hospitalization and 30-day readmissions.

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Josh Sandberg

Josh Sandberg is the President and CEO of Ortho Spine Partners and sits on several company and industry related Boards. He also is the Creator and Editor of OrthoSpineNews.

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