title: Costs and end-of-life care in the NICU: lessons for the MICU?
abstract: Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and medical intensive care units (MICUs) are both very expensive. The cost-effectiveness of NICUs has been extensively evaluated, as has the long-term outcomes of subpopulations of NICU patients. NICU treatment is among the most cost-effective of high-tech interventions. And most patients do well. There are fewer evaluations of cost-effectiveness in the MICU and almost no long-term outcome studies. Policymakers who scrutinize expensive high-tech interventions would do well to study the examples found in the NICU.
authors.affiliation: University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Children's Mercy Bioethics Center at Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, USA.
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Lantos
authors.forename: William L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Meadow
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000191:economics / Q000209:etiology; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000191:economics; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal / Q000191:economics*; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States