settingsTHE PROBLEM:
Absent, COVID, C. difficile infections would be among the most problematic infections to besiege our healthcare systems. Many papers from peer review journals calculated that the economic burden of C. difficile infection costs our country’s hospitals, billions. Recently a better evaluation of the cost of C. difficile infections was arrived at by evaluating the cost of medical claims data as it relates to the inpatient, pharmacy, and outpatient costs of these infections by individual patients that present with a C. difficile infection as an initial episode and as recurrent infection. The costs modeled were approximately $72K additional cost for an initial episode and $132K for a recurrent episode.
COST SAVINGS MODEL:
Pulls from the number of institutional C. difficile infections and calculates economic burden for facilities. It uses published clinical results for the efficacy of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG to reduce the risk of C. difficile infections, along with an estimate for the # intended to treat with Culturelle®. The model estimates financial benefit.