Traffic collisions, Related Groups by Diagnosis and Hospital Costs Clinical characteristics and costs for 740 patients hospitalized for traffic collisions in the 2012-2014 three year period at the Asistencial Medica Departamental of Maldonado, Uruguay

Abstract

Introduction: every year, almost 1.3 million people in the world die as a result of traffic collisions, and these accidents represent 1% to 3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each country.
Mortality for traffic collisions in Uruguay was 16 out of 100,000 people in 2012, 2013 and 2014; whereas in the Department of Maldonado it was 24.3 fatalities every 100,000 people during the same period.
Objective: to contribute to Pillar 5 of the Global Plan developed by the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration, providing clinical data and costs of hospitalized patients who were part of a traffic collision.
Method: descriptive, retrospective study that analyses hospitalization activity in La Asistencial Médica Departamental de Maldonado (AMDM) (a private healthcare institution in Maldonado) between 2012 and 2014. Patient discharges for hospitalizations of people who had participated in a traffic collision in those same years were identified. The cost was obtained for each one of the patients discharged in the period of time referred above and it was compared to the cost of the patients who had been in a car collision. Costs were obtained using the Customer Service Cost Structure spreadsheet (ECAS spreadsheet) that is officially prepared by the Ministry of Public Health and the Diagnosis Related Groups.
Results: total expenditure was 27.610 with an average stay of 4 days. Discharges corresponding to collisions were 740, with an average stay of 7.5 days, almost double the average stay, and 851 days/bed in the ICU. 77% corresponded to motorcyclists, 65% of them were men, average age was 36 years old. The cost of healthcare services for these patients is 2.5 times higher than the cost of average.
Conclusions: The healthcare process of patients who participated in a car collision and are admitted to hospital is complex and test the institution´s continuity.
An average of 7.5 days of hospitalization should be considered for these patients and a cost that is 2.5 time higher than that of the average patient as a chance to improve healthcare services, creating effective interdisciplinary teams and specific clinical guidelines for this type of patients. They are becoming a new classification that is growing in number and shall require new forms of response.