Study Shows That Low-Molecular Weight Heparin (LMWH) was Associated with Reduced Hospital Costs of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Treatment Compared with Unfractionated Hep...(regression wasused to compare the likeli...),Health

The analysis included 38,664 patient discharges with 53 percent (20,577) receiving LMWH and 47 percent (18,087) receiving UFH. Among patients who received LMWH, 97.3 percent (20,021) of them received Lovenox, with the remaining 2.7% receiving other LMWHs. The two groups were similar in clinical and demographic characteristics. The average length of hospital stay for the UFH group was 1.1 days longer (5.7 days vs. 4.6) days. After adjustment for covariates, the average total direct hospital costs were $3,618 for UFH and $3,068 for LMWH (difference $550, P<0.0001). Lovenox was associated with reduced cost in most categories although anticoagulation therapy costs were higher for LMWH ($242 versus $41 for UFH, P<0.0001). LMWH was associated with lower rates of VTE-related readmission at both 30 days (11.2% vs 12.1%; odds ratio [OR] 0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.84-0.96; P=0.001) and 90 days (13.1% vs 13.8%; OR 0.91, 95% CI 0.85-0.96; P<0.001).

Dr. Geno Merli, Director at the Jefferson Center for Vascular Disease, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, PA and a lead investigator of the analysis said, "What the results showed is that despite higher drug-related costs for Lovenox, the total direct medical costs for the treatment of VTE is reduced when compared to using UFH. For every 1,000 patients treated for documented DVT, the use of Lovenox may save approximately half a million dollars."

About Premier's Perspective(TM) Database

Premier's Perspective(TM) database is the most comprehensive clinical, financial and operational comparative database in the U.S. and contains information from hundreds of hospitals and millions of discharges, providing means by which hospitals can benchmark their efforts against other hospitals in an effort to improve quality and reduce costs.

About Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)

Venous thromboembolism is a gener
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