From News-Medical:
A new study that looked at nearly 134,000 emergency department visits for traumatic brain injury, including concussion, during a one year period in Ontario estimated that those visits had a total cost of $945 million over the lifetimes of those patients.
Medical treatments accounted for $292 million (31 per cent) of the estimated lifetime costs, and lost productivity amounted to $653 million (69 per cent), according to the report, published online in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Science.
Policy makers are increasingly using cost-of-illness studies such as this one to guide resource allocation and identify opportunities for improving health-care sustainability, said Dr. Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital and a senior author of the study.
