This research-backed tool estimates your hospital's costs due to catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), the most common form of hospital-acquired infection. It can be used to estimate both current and projected costs using a hypothetical intervention to reduce catheter use (a protocol involving daily assessment of catheter need).

The calculator works by combining relevant risk and cost estimates from past research on catheter-associated complications. Saint (2000) provides estimates of the risk of bacteriuria, symptomatic urinary tract infection (SUTI), and bloodstream infection (BSI), as well as estimates of the costs associated with SUTI and BSI, computed via microcosting techniques. We combine these estimates to produce new estimates of hospital-specific savings across a range of hypothetical interventions that reduce the (i) duration of catheterization and the (ii) proportion of patients with catheters.

This dual-component characterization of interventions to reduce CAUTI is similar to that taken in Fakih (2012). We focus specifically on savings after the estimated reductions in duration from Meddings (2010) and in placement from Fakih (2010).

Acknowledgments

Fakih MG, Greene MT, Kennedy EH, Meddings JA, Krein SL, Olmsted RN, Saint S. Introducing a population-based outcome measure to evaluate the effect of interventions to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infection. American Journal of Infection Control 2012;40(4):359-364.
Fakih MG, Pena ME, Shemes S, Rey J, Berriel-Cass D, Szpunar SM, Savoy-Moore RT, Saravolatz LD. Effect of establishing guidelines on appropriate urinary catheter placement. Academic Emergency Medicine 2010;17:337-340.
Kennedy EH, Greene MT, Saint S. Estimating hospital costs of catheter-associated urinary tract infection. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2013;9(9):519-522.
Saint S. Clinical and economic consequences of nosocomial catheter-related bacteriuria. American Journal of Infection Control 2000;28(1):68-75.

CAUTI Cost Calculator

Click to expand this area and spin up a live instance of the calculator!

This calculator was developed by Edward Kennedy, MS, of the University of Michigan / Department of Veterans Affairs Patient Safety Enhancement Program (PSEP). The web interface for the calculator was developed by Jeremy Hallum and Drew Montag of the University of Michigan Medical School Information Systems. Jason M. Engle, MSW, MPH, of PSEP provided additional support to migrate the calculator to standalone server infrastructure and integrate it into modernized PSEP web presence.

References