BCN HEALTH publishes a study evaluating the use of resources and medical costs of septic arthritis in Spain
The objective of this study was to review the characteristics of patients admitted with septic arthritis in Spanish hospitals and to measure the associated direct medical costs.
BCN HEALTH has published the study ‘Hospital care and medical costs of septic arthritis in Spain: a retrospective multicenter analysis’ in the journal ‘Journal of Medical Economics’, an international journal publishing rigorously peer-reviewed review articles and original papers in the pharmacoeconomics and healthcare research community.
BCN HEALTH conducted a retrospective study based on the records of patients hospitalized due to septic arthritis and treated in Spanish public and private hospitals between January of 2010 and December of 2019. The objective of this study was to review the characteristics of patients admitted with septic arthritis in Spanish hospitals and to measure the associated direct medical costs.
Data from 16,438 patients was analyzed; median age was 56 years and 63% of patients were males. Staphylococcus was the most frequent pathogen, and 3% of admissions registered an antibiotic-resistant infection. The knee was the most commonly involved joint, registered in 49% of the cases. The most frequent comorbidities were hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus and essential hypertension.
Median hospitalization time was 14 days for adult patients and 8 days for children, with an in-hospital mortality rate of 4% for adult patients and no deaths registered in children. The median length of intensive care unit stay was 3 days. The mean admission cost was €6,382 per patient, with no significant differences between age groups. Admission costs increased significantly with the length of hospital stay. The total medical cost reached 12.7 million euros per year, considering all patients in the database.
More information can be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/13696998.2022.2049149