title: Adverse events in older patients admitted to acute care: a preliminary cost description.
abstract: The financial costs associated with Adverse Events (AEs) for older patients (> or = 65 years) in Canadian hospitals are unknown. The objective of this paper is to describe and compare costs between patients who experienced an AE and those who did not during an acute hospital admission to a tertiary care facility. Patients with an AE had twice the hospital length of stay (20.2 versus 9.8 days, p < 0.00001), resulting in 1,400 extra days at a cost of approximately $7,500/patient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
authors.forename: Stacy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ackroyd-Stolarz
authors.forename: Judith Read
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Guernsey
authors.forename: Neil J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: MacKinnon
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kovacs
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D019992:Databases as Topic; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000191:economics*; D009674:Nova Scotia; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012308:Risk Management