Orthopaedic inpatients have distinct clinical traits. This study aimed to quantify the burden of nosocomial infections (NIs) on orthopaedic patients from a healthcare system perspective. A nested case-control study (2022) (2023) (2024) at the China National Orthopaedic Medical Center compared orthopaedic inpatients with and without NIs and matched cases and controls 1: 3 by age, sex, diagnosis-related group (DRG), medical payments, and preinfection time to evaluate the burden of NIs. A national economic burden analysis was subsequently conducted under various scenarios. Among 120, 764 eligible patients, 338 (0. 28%) developed NIs. A total of 321 cases were matched with 916 controls. The economic and temporal burdens of NIs are US2, 100 and 5 days per case, respectively. Haematologic NIs had the highest additional cost (US4, 295) and the second longest extended stay (9 days). In terms of initial hospitalisations and readmissions, surgical site infections extended hospital stays by 20 days and increased costs by US4, 881. The top three DRGs with high burdens are ZC11, ZJ15, and IE21 for costs and ZJ15, IE21, and IB19 for duration. In the mixed-region scenario, orthopaedic specialty hospitals nationwide incur US5. 23 million in direct medical costs annually because of NIs. These findings indicate that NIs significantly affect orthopaedic patients both individually and nationally, necessitating focused prevention and control for high-burden DRGs and specific infections.
Yang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.