Whether we are shooting to have our beauty last or maintain a healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition should always be a priority. I had the privilege to listen to a talk by Dra. Marianna Sioson, a medical nutrition physician and Dr. Rodolfo Dimaano, Medical Director of Abbott Nutrition Philippines last week on a new study that demonstrates oral nutrition supplements are associated with significant reductions in length of hospital stay and cost.
A new health economics outcomes study, conducted by leading health economists and supported by Abbott, found that oral nutritional supplements provided to patients during hospitalization are associated with significant reductions in length of stay and hospitalization cost. Additionally, the 30-day readmission risk was significantly reduced for patients with at least one known subsequent readmission.
The ″Impact of Oral Nutritional Supplementation on Hospital Outcomes” study is a retrospective data analysis on the effect of oral nutritional supplements on hospital economic outcomes. The study compared hospital stays where oral nutritional supplements were provided with similar hospital stays that did not provide oral nutritional supplements. The difference between length of hospital stay and cost of treatment (including supplies, labor, depreciation of equipment, etc.) were measured.
Benefits associated with patients provided oral nutrition supplements during hospitalization included:
- 21% or 2.3 days reduction in length of stay
- 21.6% or $4,734, reduction in patient hospitalization cost.
Additionally, there was a 6.7% reduction in the probability of a 30-day readmission in patients who had at least one known subsequent readmission and were provided oral nutrition supplements during the previous hospitalization.
″Impaired nutritional status, especially in patients recovering from serious illnesses or surgery, can result in longer hospital stays; an increase in complication rates, higher readmission rates, and associated health care costs, ″ says Dr. Marianna Sioson, president of the Philippine Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. ″Research shows that using oral nutritional supplements can help reduce their length of stay and associated hospital costs. This is indeed good news for the 4 out of 10 hospitalized Filipino patients who are nutritionally at-risk since most of them shoulder their hospital expenses out of their own pockets.”
″In an increasingly cost-pressured environment, health economics assessments can more comprehensively determine a therapy’s true value. Our results point to the tangible benefits of inpatient oral nutritional supplements on health outcomes and cost of care, factors that impact a hospital’s bottom line,” said study co-author, Darius Lakdawalla PhD, Quintiles Chair in Pharmaceutical Development and Regulatory Innovation, USC School of Pharmacy, and Sol Price School of Public Policy, and Director of Research, Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, University of Southern California.
″Because oral nutrition supplements are formulated to provide advanced nutrition and calories for compromised patients and are relatively inexpensive to provide, the sizeable savings they generate make supplementation a cost-effective therapy,″ said study co-author, Tomas Philipson PhD, Daniel Levin Chair of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
One does not need to be a senescent nor be hospitalized to know these recently concluded study. I learned a lot during the talk including measures we can do to be healthy and properly nourished and how to significantly reduce hospital stays in the event we are faced with that circumstance. Visit Abbott at www.abbott.com for more details and connect with them on Twitter at @AbbottNews.
* I received a free sample of Abbott Ensure Gold from Abbott Nutrition but the opinions here are my own.