Hospital Costs and Mortality Attributed to Nosocomial Bacteremias

Hospital patients with nosocomial bacteremia and matched hospital control patients without this infection were used to determine the excess hospital costs and mortality attributed to nosocomial bacteremias. Mortality was 14 times greater in patients with nosocomial bacteremia than in matched members of the control group with the same primary diagnoses. An itemized cost analysis, based on 81 case-control pairs, showed an average excess of approximately $3,600 in direct hospital costs for patients who had nosocomial bacteremias. It is estimated that only 24% of the total excess costs to these hospital patients are preventable. Patients with nosocomial bacteremia had an average hospitalization period that was 14 days longer than the average hospital stay for members of the control group.