A comparison of critical care research funding and the financial burden of critical illness in the United States.
OBJECTIVE
To estimate federal dollars spent on critical care research, the cost of providing critical care, and to determine whether the percentage of federal research dollars spent on critical care research is commensurate with the financial burden of critical care.


METHODS
The National Institutes of Health Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects database was queried to identify funded grants whose title or abstract contained a key word potentially related to critical care. Each grant identified was analyzed by two reviewers (three if the analysis was discordant) to subjectively determine whether it was definitely, possibly, or definitely not related to critical care. Hospital and total costs of critical care were estimated from the Premier Database, state discharge data, and Medicare data. To estimate healthcare expenditures associated with caring for critically ill patients, total costs were calculated as the combination of hospitalization costs that included critical illness as well as additional costs in the year after hospital discharge.


RESULTS
Of 19,257 grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, 332 (1.7%) were definitely related to critical care and a maximum of 1212 (6.3%) grants were possibly related to critical care. Between 17.4% and 39.0% of total hospital costs were spent on critical care, and a total of between $121 and $263 billion was estimated to be spent on patients who required intensive care. This represents 5.2% to 11.2%, respectively, of total U.S. healthcare spending.


CONCLUSIONS
The proportion of research dollars spent on critical care is lower than the percentage of healthcare expenditures related to critical illness.
Emory Center for Critical Care and Department of Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA. cmcoop3@emory.edu
Craig M
CM
Coopersmith
Hannah
H
Wunsch
Mitchell P
MP
Fink
Walter T
WT
Linde-Zwirble
Keith M
KM
Olsen
Marilyn S
MS
Sommers
Kanwaljeet J S
KJ
Anand
Kathryn M
KM
Tchorz
Derek C
DC
Angus
Clifford S
CS
Deutschman
D017281:Cost of Illness; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000191:economics*; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017721:Hospital Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.) / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012109:Research Support as Topic / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology