Much higher hospital costs (ICU and pneumonia) if low vitamin D
1300: ECONOMIC IMPACT OF VITAMIN D LEVELS LESS THAN 18 NG/ML ON HOSPITALS AND THIRD PARTY PAYERS
Matthews, Leslie; Wilson, Kenneth; Ahmed, Yusuf; Dennis-Griggs, Diane; Thomas, Carol; Childs, Ed; Moore, Carolyn; Danner, Omar
Critical Care Medicine, Issue: Volume 43(12) Supplement 1, December 2015, p 327
Learning Objectives: Vitamin D3 levels less than 18 ng/ml is associated with increased mortality rate of 30% from all causes. The economic impact of vitamin D3 deficiency has been unknown. We hypothesize that a vitamin D3 less than 18 ng/ml increases the financial burden on hospitals in terms of ICU cost, Hospital ward cost, ventilated associated pneumonias, myocardial infarctions, and total hospital days.
Methods: We looked at 2 groups of patients at Grady Memorial Hospital from 2009 -2012. Those with vitamin D levels less than 18ng/ml and those with vitamin D levels greater than 18 ng/ml. Primary outcomes were ICU cost, total hospital cost, VAP, MI, and total hospital days.
[comment by VitaminDWiki: VAP = ventilator-associated pneumonia]
Results: Of the 565 patients included in the study, 26.7% (n=162) were female vs. 71.3% (n=403) males, 31.3 %(n=177) patients were Caucasian and 66.4% (n=375) were African American. 20.2% (n=114)
developed ventilated assisted pneumonia, 5.8% (n=33)
suffered Myocardial infarction during the hospital stay.
Comparing between the two groups; patients with vitamin D levels less than 18ng/ml suffered more VAP (24.3% vs. 15.5%, P= 0.024), MI (7.6% vs. 2.8%, P= 0.031), stayed longer in ICU (11.4 ± 0.95 vs. 8.11 ± 1.1 days, P= 0.03), hospital ward (23.4 ± 1.96, vs. 15.27 ± 1.5, days P 0.005), as well as increased ICU financial cost ($43,965 ± 3,683 vs. 31,274 ± 4,311, P=0.033) and Hospital ward cost ($29,780 ± 2,501 vs. 19,418 ± 1,923, P=0.005).
VAP and MI's added $40,000 and $70,000 to hospital costs, respectively.
Conclusions: Vitamin D3 deficiency is associated with a significant financial impact on hospital and third party payers.
Further studies are needed to calculate the full economic impact on hospitals, states, countries, and third party payers.
See also VitaminDWiki
Heart Attack ICU costs reduced $37,000 by $20 of Vitamin D – Nov 2015 also by Dr. Mathews
Vitamin D deficiency again associated with higher cost of health care – April 2015
Healthy pregnancies need lots of vitamin D has the following summary
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and includes the cost savings to an HMO which gives Vitamin D during 10,000 pregnancies
$30,000,000
See also web
Vitamin D Council review of this study
10 Most visited VitaminDWiki pages in (Category) Cost savings with Vitamin D
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