Impact of an integrated mother-preterm infant intervention on birth hospitalization charges

• Published in: Journal of perinatology Vol. 40; no. 6; pp. 858 - 866
• Main Authors: Vonderheid, Susan C., Park, Chang G., Rankin, Kristin, Norr, Kathleen F., White-Traut, Rosemary
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Nature Publishing Group US 01-06-2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/700/228; 692/700/3934; Babies; Baby foods; Birth; Cost control; Cost reduction; Hospitalization; Infants; Infants (Premature); Intensive care; Medical care, Cost of; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Neonatal care; Neonatal intensive care; Neonates; Pediatric Surgery; Pediatrics; Premature babies; Premature birth; Regression analysis
• ISSN: 0743-8346; 1476-5543
• DOI: 10.1038/s41372-019-0567-7

Objective
To examine whether the H-HOPE (Hospital to Home: Optimizing the Preterm Infant’s Environment) intervention reduced birth hospitalization charges yielding net savings after adjusting for intervention costs.
Study design
One hundred and twenty-one mother-preterm infant dyads randomized to H-HOPE or a control group had birth hospitalization data. Neonatal intensive care unit costs were based on billing charges. Linear regression, propensity scoring and regression analyses were used to describe charge differences.
Results
Mean H-HOPE charges were $10,185 lower than controls (
p
 = 0.012). Propensity score matching showed the largest savings of $14,656 (
p

=
 0.003) for H-HOPE infants, and quantile regression showed a savings of $13,222 at the 75th percentile (
p
 = 0.015) for H-HOPE infants. Cost savings increased as hospital charges increased. The mean intervention cost was $680 per infant.
Conclusions
Lower birth hospitalization charges and the net cost savings of H-HOPE infants support implementation of H-HOPE as the standard of care for preterm infants.