Évaluation du coût de la réanimation, à partir de la Base nationale de coûts par activité médicale (France)

The cost of intensive care is poorly documented in France, despite its contribution to the global hospital expenditures

Objectives: To assess the cost of intensive care in France.

Design: To calculate mean costs by type of patients, from the National Hospital Cost Survey (NHCS).

Patients: Patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) in the public sector in 1997.

Results: The average cost of hospitalization in ICU is 20.532 ± 29.262 FF or 5.112 ± 3.256 FF per day (N = 23.029 after trimming). Intensive care represents 46% of medical costs per patient and 38% of their total costs. Daily cost varies according to the mode of hospital discharge and type of stay.

Discussion: The NHCS is the best available source of data on hospital costs, but it still underestimates the cost of ICU for sampling reasons, and does not yet include data to refine an analysis.

Conclusion: The study confirms that the costs of ICU are significant as compared to other hospital stays, and allows for the computation of plausible orders of magnitudes.