The financial cost of managing patients with type 2 intestinal failure; experience from a regional centre

Summary Background & aims Type 2 intestinal failure (IF) is a specific disease entity, the management of which requires multidisciplinary clinical expertise combined with appropriate infrastructure. Accurate UK costs for providing such services are unavailable. We made an assessment of these costs at our hospital, categorising patients according to whether it was an index admission (IA), readmission (RA) or admission for definitive surgery (SA). Methods A structured search was undertaken to record all activity captured electronically for 25 patients with type 2 IF. These data were combined with clinical information to generate a cost model. Results Lengths of stay were median 94 days, range (8–297) IA; 7, (1–75) RA and 28, (7–135) SA ( p p Conclusions Better costing mechanisms are needed in relation to IF patients to allow for heterogeneity, resource utilisation and varied length of stay, these should be on a cost per patient day basis depending on admission type.