The economic and ecologic impact of infectious diseases specialists in hospitals

Abstract

Background: infectious diseases specialists in our country have been playing an important role in hospital antibiotic prescription, but there is no evaluation of cost-effectiveness of having infectious diseases specialists in hospitals.

Objectives: determine the impact of several antibiotic prescription policies imposed by an infectious diseases specialist in a third level clinic in Medellin, according to nosocomial infection rates, nosocomial bacterial susceptibility patterns, and antibiotics use costs.

Methods: descriptive and prospective study, carried out in a third level clinic in Medellin, where an infectious disease specialist imposed a restriction policy for prescription of several antibiotics during one year. Results were expressed in terms of percentages and absolute numbers for being compared using different statistic tests.

Results: with the implementation of this policy, we recover or preserve the sensibility of several nosocomial bacteria to low biological impact antibiotics. Besides we decreased the total expenditure because of antibiotics use by 28%, which represented savings for $551'492,934. We also decreased the total consumption of antibiotics according to the daily defined doses point of view, and finally it was possible to decrease the nosocomial infection rate from 2,4 to 1,44.

Conclusions: having an infectious disease specialist in high complexity hospitals is a cost-effective measure to decrease the nosocomial infections rate and health costs, improving the nosocomial bacterial susceptibility patterns.