Economic Armor: Making the Financial Case for Infection Prevention

Session Description: You have a program, an initiative, a solution to reduce infections or improve care within your organization – but it requires resources. With the average operating margin for United States hospitals hovering around 2.5%, securing those resources for your program can be a formidable challenge. So how can you make a compelling economic case for your initiative?

While predicting improved clinical outcomes is often straightforward, demonstrating the financial impact is more complex – and essential. Net cost reduction is frequently a major factor which determines whether a given project advances compared to competing programs. This session will explore how to estimate the potential cost savings and economic value of infection preventionist-driven initiatives from the provider’s perspective – the perspective of your institution.

The tools and methods presented will include evaluating the impact of a given initiative upon pay-for-performance programs: the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program (HACRP), the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (HVBP), and the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). Additionally, the session will explore how to assess cost impact in capitated reimbursement environments. Topics covered will include reducing complications, shortening length of stay and time in higher acuity units, lowering supply costs, and improving staff efficiency. Lastly, demonstrating the economic effect of enhancing patient experience and reputation metrics will be discussed with emphasis on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital star ratings.

Infection preventionists drive significant improvements in patient outcomes – but those efforts cannot be realized unless they are supported by the strong financial rationale necessary to gain traction with hospital leadership who evaluate the financial viability of initiatives. Attendees will leave equipped with economic armor – practical tools to demonstrate not only the clinical benefits, but also the economic impact of their initiatives.

Timothy Kelly

Senior Director Health Economics and Outcomes Research, BD Urology and Critical Care

Timothy Kelly, MS, MBA is Senior Director of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at BD Urology and Critical Care where he designs both randomized controlled trials and real-world data analyses that are constructed to evaluate the clinical and economic effects of various disease states and conditions. Tim holds master’s degrees in biomedical engineering and business administration and has spent more than 30 years in the medical device and medical software industries. Tim has presented more than one dozen economic models at ten international ISPOR conferences. Recently, his analysis of hospital-onset bacteremia and fungemia was published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. His other work has appeared in the journals, Infectious Diseases and Therapy, Annals of Intensive Care, Urology, Urolithiasis, and Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management. He has presented at the annual conferences of numerous organizations including, APIC, AACN, ASHRM, HIMSS, and ACRP.

Roger Stienecker

Medical Director for Clinical Care Reliabilty--Growth Markets, Parkview Health

Roger Scott Stienecker MD FACP FSHEA FIDSA is a graduate of The Ohio State University School of Medicine with Internal Medicine Residency at Wake Forest University then fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Emory School of Medicine. After 22 years in private practice seeing over 27,000 unique patients, he pursued hospital epidemiology with a desire to better serve population health. Starting 2012, he became the Medical Director of Epidemiology Infection Prevention, Antimicrobial Stewardship, and Infectious Diseases Clinical Trials for Parkview Health System. The department has 25+ members in IP, epidemiology and data analytics. Parkview Health is a 1284 bed, 15 hospital system, plus several affiliated hospitals. As of January 2026, he assumed responsibility to provide Infection Prevention and Stewardship services to the affiliated hospitals as the Medical Director for Clinical Care Reliability--Growth Markets. He is on the planning committee for Association for Professionals of Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) national meeting.