The costs of nosocomial resistant gram negative intensive care unit infections among patients with the systemic inflammatory response syndrome- a propensity matched case control study

Background: Infections due to multi-drug resistant gram negative bacilli (RGNB) in critically ill patients have been reported to be associated with increased morbidity and costs and only a few studies have been done in Asia. We examined the financial impact of nosocomial RGNB infections among critically ill patients in Singapore. Methods: A nested case control study was done for patients at medical and surgical ICUs of a tertiary university hospital (August 2007-December 2011) matched by propensity scores. Two groups of propensity-matched controls were selected for each case patient with nosocomial drug resistant gram negative infection: at-risk patients with no gram negative infection or colonization (Control A) and patients with ICU acquired susceptible gram negative infection (SGNB) (Control B). The costs of the hospital stay, laboratory tests and antibiotics prescribed as well as length of stay were compared using the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test. Results: Of the 1539 patients included in the analysis, 76 and 65 patients had ICU acquired RGNB and SGNB infection respectively. The median(range) total hospital bill per day for patients with RGNB infection was 1.5 times higher than at-risk patients without GNB infection [Singapore dollars 2637.8 (458.7-20610.3) vs. 1757.4 (179.9-6107.4), p0.0001]. The same trend was observed when compared with SGNB infected patients. The median costs per day of antibiotics and laboratory investigations were also found to be significantly higher for patients with RGNB infection. The length of stay post infection was not found to be different between those infected with RGNB and SGNB. Conclusion: The economic burden of RGNB infections to the patients and the hospital is considerable. Efforts need to be taken to prevent their occurrence by cost effective infection control practices.