OBJECTIVE To analyze the impact of hospital-acquired infections on medical resource consumption under the diagnosis-related group (DRG) payment method. METHOD Medical record information and settlement lists of all discharged patients from Zhejiang Provincial People′s Hospital from 2022 to 2023 were selected. Based on the Zhejiang Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau′s diagnosis-related groups (ZJ-DRG) Edition 1.0, indicators such as time consumption index, cost consumption index, length of stay, total hospitalization costs and detailed cost breakdowns were used to analyze cases in the hospital-acquired infection group and the non-hospital-acquired infection group.

RESULTS Among the 268 278 cases included in the study, 2 186 were infected, with an infection rate of 0.81%. The infection rates for medical DRG disease group, surgical DRG disease group, and procedural DRG disease group were 0.86% (917/105 916), 0.82% (1 069/131 112), and 0.64% (200/31 250), respectively. The time consumption index and cost consumption index were higher in the hospital-acquired infection group than in the non-hospital-acquired infection group (P < 0.05). In the RW21 group, the length of stay, total hospitalization costs and detailed cost breakdowns were all higher in the hospital-acquired infection group than in the non-hospital-acquired infection group (P < 0.05). Similarly, in the BB21 and GK11 groups, the hospital-acquired infection group had high length of stay, total hospitalization costs, medicine fees, treatment fees, material fees, laboratory fees, examination fees and other fees compared to the non-hospital-acquired infection group (P < 0.05). Bone (joint) infections, respiratory infections, and infectious fever had a significant impact on the time consumption index, while respiratory infections, bone (joint) infections and urinary tract infections had a relatively great impact on the cost consumption index.

CONCLUSIONS Hospital-acquired infections result in additional consumption of medical resources. By analyzing the consumption of medical resources related to DRG disease groups, key monitoring disease groups for nosocomial infection control can be identified, which can aid relevant departments and clinical departments in taking early intervention measures, strengthen key prevention efforts, reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections, and shorten the length of stay.