Positioning infectious disease physician leaders to promote patient safety, mitigate risk: A cost avoidance revenue model

With the increase in the number of Medicare beneficiaries, more cost-efficient care is needed to preserve the Medicare budget. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have instituted value-based purchasing (VBP) to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. The VBP programme has incentivised healthcare systems to allocate resources and effort to decrease healthcare-acquired conditions (HACs). Initial HACs were heavily weighted in infection-related conditions, and improvements have been actualised through infectious disease leadership. The VBP programme is anticipated to expand to new domains in antimicrobial stewardship (AS) with the addition of AS programmes to the hospitals’ conditions of participation. The VBP programme along with other evidence demonstrates that infectious disease care and leadership leads to improved patient outcomes and decreased healthcare costs. Healthcare systems should assess current infectious disease physician engagement and optimise the utilisation of this expertise to improve outcomes for a more cost avoidance revenue model.