Background information
The Public Health Agency of Sweden has been commissioned by the Government to develop, test and validate a model for health economic calculations regarding antibiotic resistance to better assess its consequences for society in terms of morbidity, mortality and expenditure. To develop the model, input variables and additional cost at the individual level are required.
Challenge
Sirona was commissioned to identify and calculate any increased or more expensive health care and drug consumption that carriage and infection of the notifiable resistant bacteria (MRSA, VRE, PNSP and ESBL) entails compared to the corresponding sensitive bacteria.
Implementation
A complex registry study, using data from multiple sources, at national and regional level, estimated the additional cost of healthcare and drug consumption for multidrug-resistant bacteria, which was verified by medical record review. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with infectious disease physicians and public health nurses to estimate the cost of contact tracing and decontamination.
Outcome
The results showed that, on average, patients with resistant bacteria have higher healthcare costs than patients with the corresponding susceptible bacteria. In addition, the study showed that patients with resistant bacteria have a high burden of care even in the year before infection, and that the costs of tracing and decontamination are a small part of the total cost of care.
