for adults with serious illness is a policy priority worldwide. Palliative care may lower costs for hospitalized adults, but the evidence has important limitations.OBJECTIVE To estimate the association of palliative care consultation (PCC) with direct hospital costs for adults with serious illness.DATA SOURCES Systematic searches of the Embase, PsycINFO, CENTRAL, PubMed, CINAHL, and EconLit databases were performed for English-language journal articles using keywords in the domains of palliative care (eg, palliative, terminal) and economics (eg, cost, utilization), with limiters for hospital and consultation. For Embase, PsycINFO, and CENTRAL, we searched without a time limitation. For PubMed, CINAHL, and EconLit, we searched for articles published after August 1, 2013. Data analysis was performed from April 8, 2017, to September 16, 2017.STUDY SELECTION Economic evaluations of interdisciplinary PCC for hospitalized adults with at least 1 of 7 illnesses (cancer; heart, liver, or kidney failure; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; AIDS/HIV; or selected neurodegenerative conditions) in the hospital inpatient setting vs usual care only, controlling for a minimum list of confounders. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESISEight eligible studies were identified, all cohort studies, of which 6 provided sufficient information for inclusion. The study estimated the association of PCC within 3 days of admission with direct hospital costs for each sample and for subsamples defined by primary diagnoses and number of comorbidities at admission, controlling for confounding with an instrumental variable when available and otherwise propensity score weighting. Treatment effect estimates were pooled in the meta-analysis. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Total direct hospital costs.RESULTS This study included 6 samples with a total 133 118 patients (range, 1020-82 273), of whom 93.2% were discharged alive (range, 89.0%-98.4%), 40.8% had a primary diagnosis of cancer (range, 15.7%-100.0%), and 3.6% received a PCC (range, 2.2%-22.3%). Mean Elixhauser index scores ranged from 2.2 to 3.5 among the studies. When patients were pooled irrespective of diagnosis, there was a statistically significant reduction in costs

Object Incremental cost-effectiveness analysis is critical to the efficient allocation of health care resources; however, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of surgical versus nonsurgical treatment for adult spinal deformity (ASD) has eluded the literature, due in part to inherent empirical difficulties when comparing surgical and nonsurgical patients. Using observed preoperative health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for patients who later underwent surgery, this study builds a statistical model to predict hypothetical quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) without surgical treatment. The analysis compares predicted QALYs to observed postoperative QALYs and forms the resulting ICER. Methods This was a single-center (Baylor Scoliosis Center) retrospective analysis of consecutive patients undergoing primary surgery for ASD. Total costs (expressed in 2010 dollars) incurred by the hospital for each episode of surgical care were collected from administrative data and QALYs were calculated from the 6-dimensional Short-Form Health Survey, each discounted at 3.5% per year. Regression analysis was used to predict hypothetical QALYs without surgery based on preoperative longitudinal data for 124 crossover surgical patients with similar diagnoses, baseline HRQOL, age, and sex compared with the surgical cohort. Results were projected through 10-year follow-up, and the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve (CEAC) was estimated using nonparametric bootstrap methods. Results Three-year follow-up was available for 120 (66%) of 181 eligible patients, who were predominantly female (89%) with average age of 50. With discounting, total costs averaged $125,407, including readmissions, with average QALYs of 1.93 at 3-year follow-up. Average QALYs without surgery were predicted to be 1.6 after 3 years. At 3- and 5-year follow-up, the ICER was $375,000 and $198,000, respectively. Projecting through 10-year follow-up, the ICER was $80,000. The 10-year CEAC revealed a 40% probability that the ICER was $80,000 or less, a 90% probability that the ICER was $90,000 or less, and a 100% probability that the ICER was less than $100,000. Conclusions Based on the WHO's suggested upper threshold for cost-effectiveness (3 times per capita GDP, or $140,000 in 2010 dollars), the analysis reveals that surgical treatment for ASD is cost-effective after a 10-year period based on predicted deterioration in HRQOL without surgery. The ICER well exceeds the WHO threshold at earlier follow-up intervals, highlighting the importance of the durability of surgical treatment in assessing the value of surgical intervention. Due to the study's methodology, the results are dependent on the predicted deterioration in HRQOL without surgery. As such, the results may not extend to patients whose HRQOL would remain steady without surgery. Future research should therefore pursue a direct comparison of QALYs for surgical and nonsurgical patients to better understand the cost-effectiveness of surgery for the average ASD patient.

Appropriately selected and timed PC consults with physician and RN involvement can help ensure a financially viable PC program via cost savings to the hospital.

A better understanding of the consequences of spine surgery complications is warranted to optimize patient-reported outcomes and contain the rising health care costs associated with the management of adult spinal deformity (ASD). We systematically searched PubMed and Scopus databases using keywords "adult spinal deformity surgery," "complications," and "cost" for published studies on costs of complications associated with spinal surgery, with a particular emphasis on ASD and scoliosis. In the 17 articles reviewed, we identified 355,354 patients with 11,148 reported complications. Infection was the most commonly reported complication, with an average treatment cost ranging from $15,817 to $38,701. Hospital costs for patients with deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary thromboembolism, and surgical site infection were 2.3 to 3.1 times greater than for patients without those complications. An effort to collect and characterize data on cost of complications is encouraged, which may help health care providers to identify potential resources to limit complications and overall costs.

OBJECTIVEPatients with adult spinal deformity (ASD) experience significant quality of life improvements after surgery. Treatment, however, is expensive and complication rates are high. Predictive analytics has the potential to use many variables to make accurate predictions in large data sets. A validated minimum clinically important difference (MCID) model has the potential to assist in patient selection, thereby improving outcomes and, potentially, cost-effectiveness.METHODSThe present study was a retrospective analysis of a multiinstitutional database of patients with ASD. Inclusion criteria were as follows: age ≥ 18 years, radiographic evidence of ASD, 2-year follow-up, and preoperative Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) > 15. Forty-six variables were used for model training: demographic data, radiographic parameters, surgical variables, and results on the health-related quality of life questionnaire. Patients were grouped as reaching a 2-year ODI MCID (+MCID) or not (−MCID). An ensemble of 5 different bootstrapped decision trees was constructed using the C5.0 algorithm. Internal validation was performed via 70:30 data split for training/testing. Model accuracy and area under the curve (AUC) were calculated. The mean quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and QALYs gained at 2 years were calculated and discounted at 3.5% per year. The QALYs were compared between patients in the +MCID and –MCID groups.RESULTSA total of 234 patients met inclusion criteria (+MCID 129, −MCID 105). Sixty-nine patients (29.5%) were included for model testing. Predicted versus actual results were 50 versus 40 for +MCID and 19 versus 29 for −MCID (i.e., 10 patients were misclassified). Model accuracy was 85.5%, with 0.96 AUC. Predicted results showed that patients in the +MCID group had significantly greater 2-year mean QALYs (p = 0.0057) and QALYs gained (p = 0.0002).CONCLUSIONSA successful model with 85.5% accuracy and 0.96 AUC was constructed to predict which patients would reach ODI MCID. The patients in the +MCID group had significantly higher mean 2-year QALYs and QALYs gained. This study provides proof of concept for using predictive modeling techniques to optimize patient selection in complex spine surgery.