Johnathan V. Torikashvili BS , Meagan D. Read MD , Rajavi Parikh DO , Tyler Zander MD , Melissa Kendall MD , Emily A. Grimsley MD , Paul C. Kuo MD, MS, MBA, FACS
{"title":"因果非相关:截肢成本的简单中介分析","authors":"Johnathan V. Torikashvili BS , Meagan D. Read MD , Rajavi Parikh DO , Tyler Zander MD , Melissa Kendall MD , Emily A. Grimsley MD , Paul C. Kuo MD, MS, MBA, FACS","doi":"10.1016/j.jss.2025.04.008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Introduction</h3><div>The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted health-care delivery and hospital financials. This study aims to identify the pandemic's effects on costs associated with nonelective major lower extremity amputation (LEA) and mediating factors influencing this cost.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The 2019-2021 Florida Agency for Health Care Administration database was queried for adult patients who underwent nonelective LEA. Patient inflation-adjusted costs were collected. Florida COVID-19 mortality rates established 9-month COVID-heavy (CH) and COVID-light (CL) timeframes, compared to a 9-month pre-COVID (PC; 2019) timeframe. Simple mediation analysis with 2000 bootstrapping interactions evaluated patient comorbidity, surgical complications, and hospital treatment factors as potential mediators on cost.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 5963 patients were included (1957 PC, 1994 CH, 2012 CL). Compared to PC, COVID timeframes had significantly increased total (+7.8%), hospital (+14.5%), intensive care unit (+14.3%), and operating room (+14.9%) costs. Simple mediation analysis identified potential influencers of increased cost: (1) acute kidney injury during CL (<em>P</em> = 0.03), (2) sepsis during CL (<em>P</em> = 0.02), and (3) electrolyte/acid-base disorders during CH and CL (<em>P</em> < 0.01). Sensitivity analysis (E-values) could not exclude unmeasured confounding from the model findings.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial cost increases associated with nonelective major LEAs, but simple mediation analysis did not identify sensitive mediators to cost. This suggests systemic factors, such as supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages, may warrant investigation. The pandemic highlighted the need for resilient health-care systems that can address both acute and chronic care needs while mitigating inequities exacerbated by crises.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":17030,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Surgical Research","volume":"310 ","pages":"Pages 315-322"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Causation Not Correlation: Simple Mediation Analysis of Amputation Costs\",\"authors\":\"Johnathan V. Torikashvili BS , Meagan D. Read MD , Rajavi Parikh DO , Tyler Zander MD , Melissa Kendall MD , Emily A. Grimsley MD , Paul C. Kuo MD, MS, MBA, FACS\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.jss.2025.04.008\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><h3>Introduction</h3><div>The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted health-care delivery and hospital financials. This study aims to identify the pandemic's effects on costs associated with nonelective major lower extremity amputation (LEA) and mediating factors influencing this cost.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>The 2019-2021 Florida Agency for Health Care Administration database was queried for adult patients who underwent nonelective LEA. Patient inflation-adjusted costs were collected. Florida COVID-19 mortality rates established 9-month COVID-heavy (CH) and COVID-light (CL) timeframes, compared to a 9-month pre-COVID (PC; 2019) timeframe. Simple mediation analysis with 2000 bootstrapping interactions evaluated patient comorbidity, surgical complications, and hospital treatment factors as potential mediators on cost.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>A total of 5963 patients were included (1957 PC, 1994 CH, 2012 CL). Compared to PC, COVID timeframes had significantly increased total (+7.8%), hospital (+14.5%), intensive care unit (+14.3%), and operating room (+14.9%) costs. Simple mediation analysis identified potential influencers of increased cost: (1) acute kidney injury during CL (<em>P</em> = 0.03), (2) sepsis during CL (<em>P</em> = 0.02), and (3) electrolyte/acid-base disorders during CH and CL (<em>P</em> < 0.01). Sensitivity analysis (E-values) could not exclude unmeasured confounding from the model findings.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><div>The COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial cost increases associated with nonelective major LEAs, but simple mediation analysis did not identify sensitive mediators to cost. This suggests systemic factors, such as supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages, may warrant investigation. The pandemic highlighted the need for resilient health-care systems that can address both acute and chronic care needs while mitigating inequities exacerbated by crises.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":17030,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Surgical Research\",\"volume\":\"310 \",\"pages\":\"Pages 315-322\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.8000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-05-14\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Surgical Research\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"3\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022480425002185\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"医学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"SURGERY\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Surgical Research","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022480425002185","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"SURGERY","Score":null,"Total":0}
Causation Not Correlation: Simple Mediation Analysis of Amputation Costs
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted health-care delivery and hospital financials. This study aims to identify the pandemic's effects on costs associated with nonelective major lower extremity amputation (LEA) and mediating factors influencing this cost.
Methods
The 2019-2021 Florida Agency for Health Care Administration database was queried for adult patients who underwent nonelective LEA. Patient inflation-adjusted costs were collected. Florida COVID-19 mortality rates established 9-month COVID-heavy (CH) and COVID-light (CL) timeframes, compared to a 9-month pre-COVID (PC; 2019) timeframe. Simple mediation analysis with 2000 bootstrapping interactions evaluated patient comorbidity, surgical complications, and hospital treatment factors as potential mediators on cost.
Results
A total of 5963 patients were included (1957 PC, 1994 CH, 2012 CL). Compared to PC, COVID timeframes had significantly increased total (+7.8%), hospital (+14.5%), intensive care unit (+14.3%), and operating room (+14.9%) costs. Simple mediation analysis identified potential influencers of increased cost: (1) acute kidney injury during CL (P = 0.03), (2) sepsis during CL (P = 0.02), and (3) electrolyte/acid-base disorders during CH and CL (P < 0.01). Sensitivity analysis (E-values) could not exclude unmeasured confounding from the model findings.
Conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic led to substantial cost increases associated with nonelective major LEAs, but simple mediation analysis did not identify sensitive mediators to cost. This suggests systemic factors, such as supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages, may warrant investigation. The pandemic highlighted the need for resilient health-care systems that can address both acute and chronic care needs while mitigating inequities exacerbated by crises.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Surgical Research: Clinical and Laboratory Investigation publishes original articles concerned with clinical and laboratory investigations relevant to surgical practice and teaching. The journal emphasizes reports of clinical investigations or fundamental research bearing directly on surgical management that will be of general interest to a broad range of surgeons and surgical researchers. The articles presented need not have been the products of surgeons or of surgical laboratories.
The Journal of Surgical Research also features review articles and special articles relating to educational, research, or social issues of interest to the academic surgical community.