Hospital Patients With Alcohol Use Disorders at Higher Risk of Fatal Health Care-Associated Infections

Share Hospital patients with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) who develop health care-associated infections (HAIs), such as pneumonia or sepsis, are 71% more likely to die from the complication than patients without AUDs. Additionally, patients with AUDs and HAIs had a two-day longer hospital length of stay and had approximately $7,500 higher hospital costs compared to patients without AUDs who develop HAIs. The researchers evaluated patients with HAIs and assessed their outcomes—mortality, hospital length of stay, and hospital costs. They drew data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for the year 2007, and performed a retrospective study of . . .