title: An analysis of medicine costs of adult patients on a critical care unit.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the costs of medicines used to treat critically ill patients in an intensive care environment and to correlate this with severity of illness and mortality.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was conducted at a London Teaching Hospital Critical Care Unit. Data were collected for patients who were either discharged or died during September 2011 and stayed longer than 48 hours. The drug cost was related to 150 drugs that were then related to patient's acuity and outcome.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The median daily drug cost of the 85 patients was £26. The highest cost patients in the 85th percentile had significantly higher daily drug costs (median, £403) and higher scores for patient acuity. Patients with hematologic malignancy had a median daily drug cost (£561) more than 20 times higher than those without. A regression analysis based on patient's diversity explained 93% of the variance in the daily drug cost.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although the median daily drug cost for an adult critically ill patient was low, this cost significantly escalated with patient acuity and hematologic malignancy. A reference method has been designed for an in-depth evaluation of daily drug cost that could be used to compare expenditure in other units.
authors: Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King's College London, London, UK. Electronic address: sumayah.abdul-jabbar@kcl.ac.uk.
authors: Sumayah
authors: S
authors: Abdul-Jabbar
authors: School of Pharmacy, University College London, London, UK.
authors: Ian
authors: I
authors: Bates
authors: Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King's College London, London, UK.
authors: Graham
authors: G
authors: Davies
authors: Department of Pharmacy, University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
authors: Rob
authors: R
authors: Shulman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003422:Critical Care / Q000191:economics*; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000628:therapy*; D016527:Drug Costs; D005260:Female; D019337:Hematologic Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000191:economics; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000191:economics; D007902:Length of Stay; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies
keywords: Critical care; Drug cost; Intensive care; Medicine costs; Severity of illness