Route of admission and hospital costs for urologic patients

This study of 2,549 urology patients examined resource consumption by route of admission into the hospital. Almost all urologic admissions were more expensive as emergencies. These more expensive emergency urologic admissions had higher diagnostic costs, a longer hospital length of stay, and a greater severity of illness than their less expensive non-emergency counterpart. The more expensive emergency admission had a high referral rate to urology from non-urologic clinical services. These findings suggest that efficiency might be improved in the emergency urologic patients by increasing the speed of diagnosis and admission of patients to the appropriate clinical service (urology).