Healthcare
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in hospitals impose significant economic consequences on the nation's healthcare system.
Applying two different Consumer Price Index (CPI) adjustments to account for the rate of inflation in hospital resource prices, the overall annual direct medical costs of HAI to U.S. hospitals ranges from $28.4 to $33.8 billion (after adjusting to 2007 dollars using the CPI for all urban consumers) and $35.7 billion to $45 billion (after adjusting to 2007 dollars using the CPI for inpatient hospital services). After adjusting for the range of effectiveness of possible infection control interventions, the benefits of prevention range from a low of $5.7 to $6.8 billion (20 percent of infections preventable, CPI for all urban consumers) to a high of $25.0 to $31.5 billion (70 percent of infections preventable, CPI for inpatient hospital services). ¹
Taking the numbers sited by the CDC of an estimated 1.7 million Healthcare-associated infections per year in the US, each infection cost the nation’s healthcare system between $16.7k and $19.9k (after adjusting to 2007 dollars using the CPI for all urban consumers) and $21k to $26.5k (after adjusting to 2007 dollars using the CPI for inpatient hospital services). ²
Commercial
The full cost of employee absences is very significant, amounting to 36% of payroll, according to a survey sponsored by Kronos® Incorporated and conducted online in the summer of 2008. The cost of absence is often misunderstood, seen as immeasurable, or dismissed as a negligible amount. While most other expenses for an organization, including most benefit programs, have clearly defined costs, employee absence is an area that is often not carefully tracked or even when it is, does not easily reveal its full costs. In a simplistic view, absences are sometimes seen as having no extra costs, since they are largely included in payroll expenses. But most managers know that absences do affect an organization’s customer service, staffing, and attainment of production and other business objectives. Otherwise, there would be no need to try to manage them.
