Access to this article is restricted until 12 months after publication by request of the publisher.. Restriction lift date: 2019-09-24
Dementia in older people admitted to hospital: an analysis of length of stay and associated costs
Loading...
Date
2018-09-24
Authors
Ahern, Susan
Cronin, Jodi
Woods, Noel
Brady, Noeleen M.
O'Regan, Niamh A.
Trawley, Steven
Timmons, Suzanne
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published Version
Abstract
Objectives: Patients with dementia in the acute setting are generally considered to impose higher costs on the health system compared to those without the disease largely due to longer length of stay (LOS). Many studies exploring the economic impact of the disease extrapolate estimates based on the costs of patients diagnosed using routinely collected hospital discharge data only. However, much dementia is undiagnosed, and therefore in limiting the analysis to this cohort, we believe that LOS and the associated costs of dementia may be overestimated. We examined LOS and associated costs in a cohort of patients specifically screened for dementia in the hospital setting. Methods: Using primary data collected from a prospective observational study of patients aged≥70 years, we conducted a comparative analysis of LOS and associated hospital costs for patients with and without a diagnosis of dementia. Results: There was no significant difference in overall length of stay and total costs between those with (μ= 9.9 days, μ=€8246) and without (μ= 8.25 days, μ=€6855) dementia. Categorical data analysis of LOS and costs between the two groups provided mixed results. Conclusions: The results challenge the basis for estimating the costs of dementia in the acute setting using LOS data from only those patients with a formal dementia diagnosis identified by routinely collected hospital discharge data. Accurate disease prevalence data, encompassing all stages of disease severity, are required to enable an estimation of the true costs of dementia in the acute setting based on LOS.
Description
Keywords
Acute setting , Costs , Dementia , Length of stay , Older people , Screening , Dementia in older people , Associated costs of length of stay
Citation
Ahern, S., Cronin, J., Woods, N., Brady, N. M., O'Regan, N. A., Trawley, S. and Timmons, S. (2018) 'Dementia in older people admitted to hospital: an analysis of length of stay and associated costs', International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, pp. 1-7. doi: 10.1002/gps.5001
Link to publisher’s version
Copyright
© 2018, John Wiley & Sons Inc. This is the peer-reviewed version of the following article: Ahern, S., Cronin, J., Woods, N., Brady, N. M., O'Regan, N. A., Trawley, S. and Timmons, S. (2018) 'Dementia in older people admitted to hospital: an analysis of length of stay and associated costs', International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, pp. 1-7. doi: 10.1002/gps.5001, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.5001. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.