The Cost of Diabetic Hospitalizations in a University Hospital in Turkey

ABSTRACT
To determine the inpatient episodes, direct allocable costs and costs of the hospitalizations directly attributed to diabetes mellitus in Ege University Medical Faculty Hospital in 1993, izmir, Turkey. Following the selection of the clinics related with diabetes, the data was collected from Hospital Data Processing Centre and hospital directorate records and the inpatient cost figures were calculated. Mean length of stay was 17.2 days for diabetics and 10.1 days for all causes. Incremental patient days per inpatient episode attributed to diabetes mellitus was 4.8 days in the selected clinics. Total cost for the diabetic hospitalizations has represented 3.5% of the total costs of all causes. Diabetes / non-diabetes mean cost ratio was 1.65. The mean hospitalization cost per diabetic episode, and per inpatient day were 2047.5 and 135.6 USD respectively. The incremental cost per inpatient episode and per inpatient day attributed to the diabetic patients were 805.1 USD and 15.3 USD respectively. in conclusion, these figures may vary widely among the other state hospitals and private hospitals mainly due to the type of the health Insurance coverage of the population in Turkey. So, it is impossible to make any assumption about national hospitalization figures on diabetes mellitus. On the other hand, the high costs attributed to diabetes mellitus should stress the country-wide diabetes control programmes be taken into place immediately.