Oral

The five conclusions of this session are as follows: 1.This study highlights the injudicious use of stool ELISA (A/B) testing for diagnosis of CDAD and strongly suggests limiting the work up, only in those diarrhea patients who have known CDAD risk factors, to one single testing, while reserving a second repeat testing for the cases with high clinical suspicion, and avoiding the routine use of three consecutive sampling 2.Start-up costs from these five federally-funded colorectal cancer screening programs for low-income, uninsured persons were significant and varied across programs 3.The study estimates over 2.5 million admissions were due to drug therapy noncompliance($16 billion in unnecessary hospital expenditures in 2005), approximately 1.92 percent of all inpatient hospital expenditures that year 4.Person-time intensity analysis of reported utilization of health care resources shows families, while enrolled, dramatically reduced utilization, especially of costly hospitalizations 5.The total cost of diabetes varies not only across states, but also across demographic categories

Session Objectives: There are five objectives for this session. To: 1.Articulate the impact of over-utilization of C. Difficile Associated Diarrhea testing on cost burden for healthcare organizations 2.Assess start-up and implementation costs of colorectal cancer screening programs by cost categories and program activities 3.Quantify preventable hospitalization as well as the direct costs associated with medication noncompliance 4.Recognize how a short-term intervention in an urban setting can improve knowledge of asthma, resulting in dramatic decreases in utilization of health care resources for asthma 5.Describe the variability in direct medical care expenditures for treating diabetes across the country