Room Costs for Common Pediatric Hospitalizations and Cost-Reducing Quality Initiatives.
Adolescent
Child
Child, Hospitalized
Child, Preschool
Cohort Studies
Cost Savings
/ economics
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Hospital Charges
/ trends
Hospitalization
/ economics
Hospitals, Pediatric
/ economics
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Patients' Rooms
/ economics
Quality Control
Retrospective Studies
Young Adult
Journal
Pediatrics
ISSN: 1098-4275
Titre abrégé: Pediatrics
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 0376422
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
06 2020
06 2020
Historique:
accepted:
24
02
2020
pubmed:
6
5
2020
medline:
13
8
2020
entrez:
6
5
2020
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
Improvement initiatives promote safe and efficient care for hospitalized children. However, these may be associated with limited cost savings. In this article, we sought to understand the potential financial benefit yielded by improvement initiatives by describing the inpatient allocation of costs for common pediatric diagnoses. This study is a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of pediatric patients aged 0 to 21 years from 48 children's hospitals included in the Pediatric Health Information System database from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017. We included hospitalizations for 8 common inpatient pediatric diagnoses (seizure, bronchiolitis, asthma, pneumonia, acute gastroenteritis, upper respiratory tract infection, other gastrointestinal diagnoses, and skin and soft tissue infection) and categorized the distribution of hospitalization costs (room, clinical, laboratory, imaging, pharmacy, supplies, and other). We summarized our findings with mean percentages and percent of total costs and used mixed-effects models to account for disease severity and to describe hospital-level variation. For 195 436 hospitalizations, room costs accounted for 52.5% to 70.3% of total hospitalization costs. We observed wide hospital-level variation in nonroom costs for the same diagnoses (25%-81% for seizure, 12%-51% for bronchiolitis, 19%-63% for asthma, 19%-62% for pneumonia, 21%-78% for acute gastroenteritis, 21%-63% for upper respiratory tract infection, 28%-69% for other gastrointestinal diagnoses, and 21%-71% for skin and soft tissue infection). However, to achieve a cost reduction equal to 10% of room costs, large, often unattainable reductions (>100%) in nonroom cost categories are needed. Inconsistencies in nonroom costs for similar diagnoses suggest hospital-level treatment variation and improvement opportunities. However, individual improvement initiatives may not result in significant cost savings without specifically addressing room costs.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND
Improvement initiatives promote safe and efficient care for hospitalized children. However, these may be associated with limited cost savings. In this article, we sought to understand the potential financial benefit yielded by improvement initiatives by describing the inpatient allocation of costs for common pediatric diagnoses.
METHODS
This study is a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of pediatric patients aged 0 to 21 years from 48 children's hospitals included in the Pediatric Health Information System database from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017. We included hospitalizations for 8 common inpatient pediatric diagnoses (seizure, bronchiolitis, asthma, pneumonia, acute gastroenteritis, upper respiratory tract infection, other gastrointestinal diagnoses, and skin and soft tissue infection) and categorized the distribution of hospitalization costs (room, clinical, laboratory, imaging, pharmacy, supplies, and other). We summarized our findings with mean percentages and percent of total costs and used mixed-effects models to account for disease severity and to describe hospital-level variation.
RESULTS
For 195 436 hospitalizations, room costs accounted for 52.5% to 70.3% of total hospitalization costs. We observed wide hospital-level variation in nonroom costs for the same diagnoses (25%-81% for seizure, 12%-51% for bronchiolitis, 19%-63% for asthma, 19%-62% for pneumonia, 21%-78% for acute gastroenteritis, 21%-63% for upper respiratory tract infection, 28%-69% for other gastrointestinal diagnoses, and 21%-71% for skin and soft tissue infection). However, to achieve a cost reduction equal to 10% of room costs, large, often unattainable reductions (>100%) in nonroom cost categories are needed.
CONCLUSIONS
Inconsistencies in nonroom costs for similar diagnoses suggest hospital-level treatment variation and improvement opportunities. However, individual improvement initiatives may not result in significant cost savings without specifically addressing room costs.
Identifiants
pubmed: 32366609
pii: peds.2019-2177
doi: 10.1542/peds.2019-2177
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Commentaires et corrections
Type : CommentIn
Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2020 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.