Hospital admissions types and cost by admission type
The differences in average costs between study arms observed in Table 1 prompted further post hoc investigation of the admission episodes and costs by admission type. The two arms were similar in the mean percentage of mother/baby pairs that had any additional admissions for either mother or baby after the initial delivery admission (CTG+STan: 40%; CTG: 43.5%). Almost two-thirds of pairs in both arms had no additional admissions. The CTG+STan cohort had a nominally increased rate of maternal readmission, however it was also associated with fewer neonatal admissions, with particular relative reductions in neonates requiring two or more admissions, and admissions requiring critical care (Supplementary table 2). Critical care refers to Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) where a multidisciplinary team cares for babies who need 1:1 continuous observation and monitoring and will often require respiratory support including oxygen therapy, CPAP, intubation, central line management and critical pharmacological support
Table 2 shows total and average hospital admission and readmission costs by the type of admission. Costs associated with delivery were similar across arms with a marginally (approximately 1%) higher cost in the CTG+STan arm and costs per maternal readmission were also higher in the CTG+STan arm (AUD5,188 vs AUD3,194), however given the overall low rate of readmissions the average difference (AUD142 vs AUD67) over the cohort as a whole was small (Table 2).