Healthcare is a demanding service to the patients, which is highly focused on the quality, health, wellbeing of the patient clients. The care programs are usually knitted to provide cost-effective care that is safe, of high quality, and that is effective in contributing to the patient’s health and independence. The healthcare providers and the patient should have their efforts merged to enhance the achievement of the goals. This paper will discuss the financial impact of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) on the patients and organizational budgets that also affect care quality.
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In our workplace, CAUTIs are becoming a major concern for both the patients and healthcare providers due to the high levels of financially disproportionate care, influencing activities that increase the financial cost of care. Some of the adverse care processes that may have resulted from the CAUTIs among the patients include extended hospitalization, increased management cost for the CAUTIs, compensatory services to the patients for the hospital-acquired infections, and increased length of recovery period that affects their independence. All these factors have been thus contributing additional costs to the healthcare providing institution and the patient or caregiving team of the patients and therefore should be addressed by the hospital in controlling the surging budgets due to the financial implications.
Various studies have been conducted to ascertain the financial implications of hospital-acquired infections such as CAUTIs on the patient care process. The first peer-reviewed research by Hutton et al. (2018) evaluates the economic impact of catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) prevention programs in nursing homes. The randomized clinical trial was set in a community-based nursing home facility for patients with indwelling urinary catheters. The researchers used an infection prevention program as an intervention that would be compared to the standard care and used measurements such as costs of intervention, cost-effectiveness ratio, and general health outcomes of the patients. The research’s results indicated that the intervention contributed to less cost of care compared to the placebo. The results showed that the cost of treating the disease reduced by $54,316 in a year which amounted to a $34,037 net savings on the cost of care. The research results supported the hypothesis that CAUTIs increased the cost of care, and preventive interventions against the acquired infections would directly impact cost reduction. As seen through the study, the key cost-saving avenues were reduced CAUTI hospitalizations and reduced CAUTIs care, which impacted on $39,180 and $15,136 savings, respectively. From this research article and study, it is evident that catheter-associated urinary tract infections contribute to increased cost of care, and the application of preventive care programs would reduce the rates of infection that would reduce the cost of care for both the hospital and the individual patients.
Another article, Smith et al. (2019), discusses the hospitals’ health economic burden of urinary catheter-associated infections. The researchers used a decision-analytic model to estimate the annual prevalence of CAUTIs and central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and how they are closely associated with the excess economic health burden. The study researchers conducted scenario and probabilistic sensitivity analyses on health and economic benefits for catheter infections preventions. Through the model, CAUTIs were estimated to be 42,967 while CLABSIs were estimated to be 7529. The hospital-onset infections were found to be 38,084 and 2,524, respectively. According to the study results, CAUTIs contributed to 45,717 excess bed days, 1467 deaths, and 10,471 lost QALYs in a year. Every percent reduction for catheter-associated infection prevalence, there would be a £9,800 saving on direct hospital costs, which would amount to £54.4 million in a year and an additional £209.4M in economic value. The results indicate that the increased prevalence of CAUTIs and CLABSIs increases the cost of care and the general economic health burden in a country.
The healthcare organization members play a very important role in reducing the key factors that contribute to financial loss over the increased cost of care. In establishing the situation in my community hospital as a PRN nurse, I interviewed two healthcare providers; the chief nursing officer and the intensive care unit manager. Ms. Morris is the CNO of the hospital and has various responsibilities attached to the quality pat
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