The base case analysis was conducted from the perspective of a health care payer; a sensitivity analysis was also conducted from the hospital perspective.19 We included hospital costs and postdischarge home care costs for hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. Health outcomes included quality-adjusted life years and the incidence of pressure ulcers occurring intraoperatively and immediately postoperation. We defined intraoperative risk as the risk associated with the duration of restricted mobility caused by the operation and immediately postoperative risk as the cumulative
risk in the first 2 days after operation.26
A time horizon of 1 year was used for the
analysis, including the duration of hospital stay
and the period of postdischarge convalescence.
Because of the short time horizon, health outcomes
and costs were not discounted. All costs are
expressed in Canadian dollars in 2009 (after
adjusting for purchasing power parity, $1 Canadian
= $0.84 U.S.).27