B: Estimating the cost of health care-associated infections: mind your p’s and q’s. Clin Infect Dis 2010

Monetary valuations of the economic cost of health care–associated infections (HAIs) are important for decision making and should be estimated accurately. Erroneously high estimates of costs, designed to jolt decision makers into action, may do more harm than good in the struggle to attract funding for infection control. Expectations among policy makers might be raised, and then they are disappointed when the reduction in the number of HAIs does not yield the anticipated cost saving. For this article, we critically review the field and discuss 3 questions. Why measure the cost of an HAI? What outcome should be used to measure the cost of an HAI? What is the best method for making this measurement? The aim is to encourage researchers to collect and then disseminate information that accurately guides decisions about the economic value of expanding or changing current infection control activities. Because health care resources are scarce, they should be allo-cated to programs that deliver quantifiable health benefits. A rule of thumb for decision making is that the more benefit gained per dollar spent, the better [1]. This applies to those working to reduce the number of health care–associated in-fections (HAIs). They should aim to allocate their budget across infection prevention strategies that deliver the largest possibl