ArticleBMC health services research2017
What is a hospital bed day worth? A contingent valuation study of hospital Chief Executive Officers.
Article in BMC health services research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- Cost-effectiveness of an Environmental Cleaning Bundle for Reducing Healthcare-associated Infections.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2020Trial
- Thermal clothing to reduce heart failure morbidity during winter: a randomised controlled trial.BMJ open · 2017Trial
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- Forecasting Hospital Room and Ward Occupancy Using Static and Dynamic Information Concurrently: Retrospective Single-Center Cohort Study.JMIR medical informatics · 2024Article
- Stakeholders' perspectives on capturing societal cost savings from a quality improvement initiative: A qualitative study.PloS one · 2024Article
- Economic Evaluation of Novel Models of Care for Patients With Acute Medical Problems.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Integrating economic considerations into cutpoint selection may help align clinical decision support toward value-based healthcare.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2023Article
- Evaluating the costs and consequences of computerized clinical decision support systems in hospitals: a scoping review and recommendations for future practice.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2023Article
- Identification of an Optimal COVID-19 Booster Allocation Strategy to Minimize Hospital Bed-Days with a Fixed Healthcare Budget.Vaccines · 2023Article
- A retrospective study of physiotherapy management for patients with pneumonia requiring invasive ventilation in a single-center Australian ICU.Hong Kong physiotherapy journal : official publication of the Hong Kong Physiotherapy Association Limited = Wu li chih liao · 2022Article
- Mortality, Length of Stay, and Healthcare Costs Associated With Multidrug-Resistant Bacterial Infections Among Elderly Hospitalized Patients in the United States.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDecreasing hospital length of stay, and so freeing up hospital beds, represents an important cost saving which is often used in economic evaluations. The savings need to be accurately quantified in order to make optimal health care resource allocation decisions. Traditionally the accounting cost of a bed is used. We argue instead that the economic cost of a bed day is the better value for making resource decisions, and we describe our valuation method and estimations for costing this important resource.
methodsWe performed a contingent valuation using 37 Australian Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs) willingness to pay (WTP) to release bed days in their hospitals, both generally and using specific cases. We provide a succinct thematic analysis from qualitative interviews post survey completion, which provide insight into the decision making process.
resultsOn average CEOs are willing to pay a marginal rate of $216 for a ward bed day and $436 for an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed day, with estimates of uncertainty being greater for ICU beds. These estimates are significantly lower (four times for ward beds and seven times for ICU beds) than the traditional accounting costs often used. Key themes to emerge from the interviews include the importance of national funding and targets, and their associated incentive structures, as well as the aversion to discuss bed days as an economic resource.
conclusionsThis study highlights the importance for valuing bed days as an economic resource to inform cost effectiveness models and thus improve hospital decision making and resource allocation. Significantly under or over valuing the resource is very likely to result in sub-optimal decision making. We discuss the importance of recognising the opportunity costs of this resource and highlight areas for future research.
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