Incremental costs of hospital-acquired complications in Alberta, Canada

Abstract

Background Hospital-acquired diagnoses (HAD) not only lengthen inpatients’ recovery times but also incur significant additional costs of care. The focus of previous research has been on ‘highly preventable’ indicator conditions and the cost of individual episodes, rather than on the entire spectrum of unintentional patient harm. As well, little attention has been paid to the frequency of HADs and resulting total costs.