Wound-Specific Oral Nutritional Supplementation Can Reduce the Economic Burden of Pressure Injuries for Nursing Homes

My paper with co-authors Shanshan Wang and Kirk Kirr just came out in the Journal of Long-Term Care titled Wound-Specific Oral Nutritional Supplementation Can Reduce the Economic Burden of Pressure Injuries for Nursing Homes: Results from an Economic Model. The abstract is below.

Background

To measure the cost savings and staff time savings of wound-specific oral nutritional supplements (WS-ONS) for patients with pressure injuries (PIs) in an average US nursing home in one year.

Methods

Using evidence on how WS-ONS can impact PI healing time, we created a decision tree model to estimate changes in annual nursing home cost and staff time needed to treat PIs, between WS-ONS and standard of care. Cost savings were modeled as the reduced costs (in 2021 USD) of treating PIs due to improved healing time for a typical nursing home. Staff time was modeled using a time per task approach with tasks based on current PI treatment guidelines. The study period was one year, and the cost savings were measured from a US nursing home perspective.

Results

A typical US nursing home with 85 residents would have 16 PI cases per year. Depending on the PI stage, WS-ONS reduced time to healing among patients with PI by 5.7 to 7.9 weeks compared to standard of care. WS-ONS use during PI reduced nursing home costs by $6,319 per patient for a Stage 2 PI, $7,651 per patient for a Stage 3 PI, and $16,579 per patient for a Stage 4 PI. The total cost savings from WS-ONS use at the nursing home level were $44,230 for Stage 2 PIs, $15,301 for Stage 3 PIs, and $49,737 for Stage 4 PIs. Across all stages, total annual cost savings for the typical US nursing home was $109,269. Nursing home staff time saving from WS-ONS administration was 65 hours per PI patient or 1,040 hours per nursing home per year.

Implications

Nursing homes can realize reduced costs and staff time required to treat PIs from the use of WS-ONS among patients with PIs. Future research should uncover the suitable implementation strategies for nursing homes to use WS-ONS for appropriate patients with PI.

You can read the full paper here.