A system-wide preoperative diet program improves affected person outcomes and provides the potential for substantial value financial savings for well being care methods, based on a brand new research being introduced on the American Faculty of Surgeons (ACS) Medical Congress 2024 in San Francisco, California. The research findings spotlight the worth of utilizing vitamins to assist the immune system earlier than surgical procedure to scale back hospital stays and reduce postoperative problems.
Our findings present that incorporating preoperative diet as a regular a part of surgical care can result in important reductions in well being care utilization and prices. These outcomes emphasize the significance of routine dietary assist within the preoperative interval to boost affected person restoration and scale back monetary burdens on well being care methods.”
Edward A. Joseph, MBBS, lead creator and most cancers medical outcomes analysis fellow on the Allegheny Well being Community
Research overview
Researchers analyzed administrative claims information from 4,078 surgical circumstances inside the Allegheny Well being Community well being care system, spanning eight surgical specialties. They carried out a scientific evaluate to undertaking the affect of preoperative diet on hospitalization and long-term complication charges. The evaluate discovered a mean 18% discount in hospital stays and a 33% lower in problems, translating to a cumulative discount of two,699 hospital days (HD) and 865 outlier days (HD>30) over the research interval, finally leading to a projected annual financial savings of $7.8 million.
Key decreases in well being care utilization included:
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865 outlier days decreased: This system notably decreased “outlier days,” outlined as hospital days exceeding anticipated period, that are a major value to payers. This discount alone accounted for $6.1 million in projected financial savings.
Projected monetary affect
The research projected the whole well being care utilization value for the analyzed procedures to be roughly $130.9 million. Implementing the preoperative diet program, which prices about $244,680 yearly (4,078 sufferers at $60 per diet bundle), resulted in an estimated whole financial savings of $7.8 million yearly for the payer/insurance coverage sector. Well being care suppliers profit from the general discount in hospital days and decreased problems, which might translate to raised useful resource utilization and potential value financial savings by way of staffing, mattress availability, and different operational prices.
These diet packages, obtainable over-the-counter, encompass immunonutrition shakes stuffed with omega-3 fatty acids and arginine to assist immune well being and surgical restoration. Earlier than surgical procedure, this diet package deal helps sufferers “carbo-load,” which might enhance common well-being each earlier than and after surgical procedure. Vitamin applications had been primarily used for most cancers sufferers prior to now, however there could also be advantages in increasing to extra surgical sufferers.
In keeping with the research authors, adopting a system-wide preoperative diet program can improve affected person outcomes considerably whereas offering a considerable monetary profit to payers and suppliers. “These findings underscore the necessity for extra widespread implementation of preoperative dietary assist, because it provides a transparent path to enhancing care and decreasing prices,” Dr. Joseph stated.
Co-authors are Nathan Bloom, MBA, BS; Camille Hamlet, MBA, MHA, BSN, RN-BC; David L. Bartlett, MD, FACS; Sricharan Chalikonda, MBBS, FACS; and Casey J. Allen, MD, FACS.
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