The Burden of Clostridioides Difficile

Healthcare associated infections (HAI) can be a tremendous burden on hospital systems, patients, and clinicians. Within (HAI), rCDI can be a particularly challenging burden having patients deal with the same ongoing health issue. One study looked at the number of hospital admissions of Medicare patients and saw 20% of inpatients had rCDI as the primary diagnosis.

The findings were presented virtually at the 23rd Annual Making a Difference in Infectious Disease Meeting 2021 virtual sessions.

Investigators performed a large retrospective analysis looking at Medicare patient hospital admissions. They looked at Part A Medicare claims from January 2018 to June 2019. They had a total of 43,039 patients with 47,115 CDI-related hospital admissions, and 9472 of these admissions had rCDI.

They studied a variety of factors in 2 groups: CDI-related hospital admissions and non-CDI admissions. They looked at the length of stay (LOS), costs per admission, discharge status, outcomes, and in-hospital mortality.

The results did show differences in each patient group. For example, rCDI admissions resulted in higher inpatient costs than non-rCDI admissions. Investigators also found patients’ LOS was slightly longer for rCDI than non-rCDI admissions: 6.0 (5.7) vs 5.5 (5.1) days.

Contagion spoke to principal investigator Meg Franklin, PharmD, PhD, president of Franklin Pharmaceutical Consulting who provided some insights into the understanding of the analysis including the patient implications and financial burden these challenging infections cost.