Cost Analysis
The Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) periodically publishes an inpatient ready reckoner of acute hospital inpatient and daycase activity costs summarised by diagnosis related group (DRG). The most recent edition was published in 2013 using total costs per DRG from 2011 data broken down into costs per average case. Admissions are further stratified by whether a catastrophic or severe complication occurred during their inpatient stay, but as HIPE data does not provide this information, a total average cost per case was calculated. This was then used to calculate cost per bed-day, which was then applied to bed-day usage data for the current study, to calculate monthly costs.