Cost of illness of community-acquired pneumonia. Review of the literature and possible strategies in the Serbian health care setting

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) represents a potentially severe illness with high incidence and significant economic impact. The estimated incidence varies from 1.6 to 13.4 cases/1000 inhabitants per year. Its burden of disease is attributed to high morbidity, mortality and serious health care utilization and expenditure throughout the world. The identification of determinants of high treatment costs could help in defining strategies for their reduction and more efficient use of the existing resources. In this article, a review of the existing literature about CAP cost-of-illness is provided, together with some considerations about possible strategies to decrease CAP costs in the Serbian health care setting. Available reports from cost-of-illness trials of CAP are relatively scarce. Most of them highlight the high costs generated by treatment protocols, with important differences between inpatients and outpatients. The inpatient cases of CAP varies from 18 to 60%. The therapy represents 10 to 15% of the overall costs of CAP. The costs of CAP treatment among inpatients are 7.9 times higher than those in outpatients. In case of complications and prolonged length of stay, this difference could even be 17 to 51 times higher. Frequent hospital admissions could be avoided, which would reduce the costs of CAP treatment. An important precondition for successful cost containment would be higher adherence to clinical guidelines, particularly reflected through Pneumonia Severity Index-a (PSI) application. Thus, it would be possible to significantly reduce the length of stay in hospital, in majority of patients, without jeopardizing their health or influencing the clinical course of illness

Unusual Respiratory Manifestations of Ankylosing Spondylitis – A Case Report

A male patient, 54 years old, was initially admitted to the hospital because of fatigue he felt during the last month and swelling of the lower legs. Upon hospital admittance, gas exchange analysis showed global respiratory failure: pO2=6.1 kPa, pCO2=10.9 kPa, pH=7.35, A-a gradient = 1.0. Due to the existence of hypercapnia and decompensated respiratory acidosis, the patient was connected to a device for non-invasive mechanical ventilation. Reduced chest mobility was noticed, and the respiratory index value was decreased. Radiographs of the chest and thoracic and lumbo-sacral spine showed marked changes on the spine attributable to ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Radiographs of the sacroiliac joints showed reduced sacroiliac joint intraarticular space with signs of subchondral sclerosis. The diagnosis of AS was set on the basis of New York Criteria (bilateral sacroiliitis, grade 3) and clinical criteria (back pain, lumbar spine limitation and chest expansion limitation). HLA typing (HLA B27 +) confirmed the diagnosis of AS. Pulmonary function test proved severe restrictive syndrome. Polysomnography verified the existence of severe obstructive sleep apnoea (AHI =73). This was a patient with newly diagnosed AS, with consequent severe restrictive syndrome and global respiratory failure with severe obstructive sleep apnoea. Thee patient was discharged from the hospital with a NIV (global respiratory failure) device for home use during the night

Community-acquired pneumonia: economics of inpatient medical care vis-à-vis clinical severity,

Objective: To assess the direct and indirect costs of diagnosing and treating community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), correlating those costs with CAP severity at diagnosis and identifying the major cost drivers. Methods: This was a prospective cost analysis study using bottom-up costing. Clinical severity and mortality risk were assessed with the pneumonia severity index (PSI) and the mental Confusion-Urea-Respiratory rate-Blood pressure-age ≥ 65 years (CURB-65) scale, respectively. The sample comprised 95 inpatients hospitalized for newly diagnosed CAP. The analysis was run from a societal perspective with a time horizon of one year. Results: Expressed as mean ± standard deviation, in Euros, the direct and indirect medical costs per CAP patient were 696 ± 531 and 410 ± 283, respectively, the total per-patient cost therefore being 1,106 ± 657. The combined budget impact of our patient cohort, in Euros, was 105,087 (66,109 and 38,979 in direct and indirect costs, respectively). The major cost drivers, in descending order, were the opportunity cost (lost productivity); diagnosis and treatment of comorbidities; and administration of medications, oxygen, and blood derivatives. The CURB-65 and PSI scores both correlated with the indirect costs of CAP treatment. The PSI score correlated positively with the overall frequency of use of health care services. Neither score showed any clear relationship with the direct costs of CAP treatment. Conclusions: Clinical severity at admission appears to be unrelated to the costs of CAP treatment. This is mostly attributable to unwarranted hospital admission (or unnecessarily long hospital stays) in cases of mild pneumonia, as well as to over-prescription of antibiotics. Authorities should strive to improve adherence to guidelines and promote cost-effective prescribing practices among physicians in southeastern Europe