In Europe, about one third of patients receives antibiotic (AB) therapy during hospitalization. A common adverse effect of AB treatment is the development of antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) with symptoms ranging from mild to severe attacks. AAD, and particularly the more severe forms of Clostridium difficile infection, may result in increased diagnostic procedures, extended hospital stay and increased medical care costs. Enterol (S. Boulardii CNCM-i775) is a pharmaceutical probiotic with proven efficacy in reducing the risk for development of AAD. This study translates these clinical findings to meaningful economic outcomes relevant for hospitals and payers alike.
This project is a prime example of a start-to finish strategic partnership in which Hict was involved from the get-go providing assistance in shaping the strategic priorities up to providing the building blocks for further messaging in the form of a series of publications and scientific presentations supporting Enterol’s economic value message.
The first phase of the project comprised primary and secondary market research to finetune the strategic priorities of the follow-up research.
Next, a roadmap was drafted towards development of targeted stakeholder messaging focused on the health-economic profile of enterol prophylaxis for AAD in hospitalized patients. Given the lack of suitable Belgian data, this roadmap included setting up & running a prevalence study in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Innovation in Care of the University of Antwerp coupled to a resource use survey across different wards in 2 different hospital groups in Belgium.
The results of these studies were tied together with the outcomes of a structured literature search to fuel development of a health economic (cost minimization) model taking into account the different stakeholder perspectives of interest for follow-up communication.
The outcomes of the health economic analysis and its building blocks were the subject of 2 peer reviewed papers and a number of posters and presentations at international scientific conferences
