COVID-19 inpatient mortality in Brazil from 2020 to 2022: a cross-sectional overview study based on secondary data.

BACKGROUND: In Brazil, the COVID-19 pandemic found the universal and public Unified Health System (SUS) with problems accumulated over time, due, among other reasons, to low investments, and disparities in resource distribution. The preparedness and response of the healthcare system, involving the SUS and a private sector, was affected by large socioeconomic and healthcare access inequities. This work was aimed at offering an overview of COVID-19 inpatient mortality during the pandemic in Brazil, exploring factors associated with its variations and, specifically, differences across public, private (for-profit) and philanthropic (private non-profit) inpatient healthcare units, providers, and non-providers of services to the SUS. METHODS: This cross-sectional study used public secondary data. The main data source was the SIVEP-Gripe, which comprises data on severe acute respiratory illness records prospectively collected. We also employed the National Record of Health Establishments, the SUS' Hospitalization Information System and municipalities' data from IBGE. We considered adult COVID-19 hospitalizations registered in SIVEP-Gripe from February 2020 to December 2022 in inpatient healthcare units with a minimum of 100 cases in the period. Data analyses explored the occurrence of inpatient mortality, employing general linear mixed models to identify the effects of patients', health care processes', healthcare units' and municipalities' characteristics on it. RESULTS: About 70% of the COVID-19 hospitalizations in Brazil were covered by the SUS, which attended the more vulnerable population groups and had worse inpatient mortality. In general, non-SUS private and philanthropic hospitals, mostly reimbursed by healthcare insurance plans accessible for more privileged socioeconomic classes, presented the best outcomes. Southern Brazil had the best performance among the macro-regions. Black and indigenous individuals, residents of lower HDI municipalities, and those hospitalized out of their residence city presented higher odds of inpatient mortality. Moreover, adjusted inpatient mortality rates were higher in the pandemic peak moments and were significantly reduced after COVID-19 vaccination reaching a reasonable coverage, from July 2021. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 exposed socioeconomic and healthcare inequalities and the importance and weaknesses of SUS in Brazil. This work indicates the need to revert the disinvestment in the universal public system, a fundamental policy for reduction of inequities in the country.

Patterns of hospital utilization in the Unified Health System in six Brazilian capitals: comparison between the year before and the first six first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the temporal evolution of the pattern of hospital use in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. METHODS: This retrospective observational study compared hospital use and mortality in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic with the year before the onset of the pandemic in six Brazilian capitals (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Manaus, Fortaleza, Recife, and Brasilia). It was based on secondary administrative data from the SUS Hospital Information System (SIH), focusing on the number of hospitalizations per fortnight, age, and gender of patients, hospital length of stay, and the proportions of surgical, elective, with the use of ICU, and resulting in death hospitalizations. It also compared the number of hospitalizations and mortality related to frequent diagnostic groups. RESULTS: A significant drop was identified in the number of hospitalizations as of March 2020, with the first peak of COVID-19 hospitalizations in five capitals recorded in May 2020. In the six capitals, we observed significant reductions in the mean number of hospitalizations per fortnight from the beginning of the pandemic. We also identified an increase in the mean age of the patients and the proportion of male patients. The proportion of surgical and elective hospitalizations dropped significantly in all capitals, while the proportion of hospitalizations with ICU use increased significantly. Significant increases in-hospital mortality were also recorded in the six capitals with the pandemic, including or excluding COVID-19 hospitalizations from the comparison. CONCLUSION: The pandemic caused changes in the pattern of use and hospital indicators in the first six months in the cities considered, evidencing the need for attention to diseases with a hospital production altered by the COVID-19 course and health system performance problems in the face of challenges.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Point-of-Care Rapid Testing Versus Laboratory-Based Testing for Antenatal Screening of Syphilis in Brazil.

OBJECTIVES: Severe consequences of mother-to-child transmission of syphilis and high increasing incidence of congenital syphilis remains an important public health problem in Brazil. Our objective was to assess the cost-effectiveness of a rapid point-of-care test (RT) and treatment of positive mothers immediately compared with a laboratory-based standard test (ST) with treatment at next follow-up visit. METHODS: A decision analytic model was developed to estimate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) between antenatal syphilis screening strategies. The model was built with lifetime horizon from Brazilian health system perspective using 3% and 5% discount rates. A hypothetical cohort of pregnant women at reproductive age were used in the model. Health outcomes: low birth weight, stillbirths, neonatal deaths and congenital syphilis were estimated in disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) lost. Microcosting study and secondary data provided parameters of direct medical costs. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was undertaken. RESULTS: For base case, the mean cost per pregnant woman screened was $2.63 (RT) and $2.48 (ST), respectively. Maternal syphilis was associated with a loss of 0.0043 DALYs (RT) and 0.0048 DALYs (ST) per mother screened. Expected value of incremental cost per DALY averted was $298.08. After 10 000 probabilistic sensitivity analysis model runs, incremental cost and health benefits were $0.15 (95% credible interval -1.56 to 1.92) and 0.00042 DALYs (95% credible interval -0.0036 to 0.0044), respectively, with a mean ICER of $357.44 per DALY. Screening with RT has a 58% chance of being the optimal strategy at a threshold of $3,200 per DALY. CONCLUSIONS: In Brazil, antenatal screening with syphilis RT and immediate treatment is likely to be cost-effective compared with standard screening and must be prioritized in local settings.

Patients' preferences for coronary revascularization: a systematic review.

AIMS: Current recommendations regarding the best treatment option for coronary revascularization are usually based on composite outcomes that were not selected or weighed with patients thence they may fail in representing patients' preferences adequately. This systematic review aimed to appraise existing literature surrounding stated preference (SP) regarding coronary revascularization. METHODS AND RESULTS: Studies related to SP regarding coronary revascularization were searched on Medline, Embase and Lilacs databases. Two reviewers screened all titles independently, and consensus resolved any disagreements. Of 735 total citations, six studies were included and qualitatively synthesized. Notably, the attributes most often cited in these studies coincided with those already used in clinical trials (death, myocardial infarction, stroke and redo revascularization). Half of the studies analyzed the use of composite endpoints and showed the necessity to review this practice since the attributes are weighed differently, and there is a disagreement between patients and physicians. Also, a large variety of methods were used to elicitate and value the attributes such as rating, ranking, standard gamble, willingness to pay, and discrete choice experiments. CONCLUSION: Despite a large number of studies comparing revascularization treatment efficacy, there are just a few focusing on patients' preferences. The selection of outcomes to be considered in the trade-off between treatment options and how to weigh them properly, taking into consideration patients' preferences, need to be explored in future trials.

"Factors associated with non-small cell lung cancer treatment costs in a Brazilian public hospital".

BACKGROUND: The present study estimated the cost of advanced non-small cell lung cancer care for a cohort of 251 patients enrolled in a Brazilian public hospital and identified factors associated with the cost of treating the disease, considering sociodemographic, clinical and behavioral characteristics of patients, service utilization patterns and survival time. METHODS: Estimates were obtained from the survey of direct medical cost per patient from the hospital's perspective. Data was collected from medical records and available hospital information systems. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method with logarithmic transformation of the dependent variable for the analysis of cost predictors was used to take into account the positive skewness of the costs distribution. RESULTS: The average cost of NSCLC was US$ 5647 for patients, with 71% of costs being associated to outpatient care. The main components of cost were daily hospital bed stay (22.6%), radiotherapy (15.5%) and chemotherapy (38.5%). The OLS model reported that, with 5% significance level, patients with higher levels of education, with better physical performance and less advanced disease have higher treatment costs. After controlling for the patient's survival time, only education and service utilization patterns were statistically significant. Individuals who were hospitalized or made use of radiotherapy or chemotherapy had higher costs. The use of these outpatient and hospital services explained most of the treatment cost variation, with a significant increase of the adjusted R2 of 0.111 to 0.449 after incorporation of these variables in the model. The explanatory power of the complete model reached 62%. CONCLUSIONS: Inequities in disease treatment costs were observed, pointing to the need for strategies that reduce lower socioeconomic status and population's hurdles to accessing cancer care services.