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HIV and Secondary Conditions Lengthen Hospital Stays

With medical costs on the rise, reducing hospital stays and expenses are in the best interests of all involved. Researchers decided to investigate how hospital stays differ for those who have HIV and secondary conditions. In an effort to organize and better manage time and resources, a study was conducted on the length, cost and complications of certain hospital stays. The results could help medical institutes come up with ways to better care for their patients, especially those with multiple medical issues.

In particular, HIV patients with secondary conditions—those that could become critical—were observed because their stays differed from those of the other patients. These were then broken down into categories, depending on infirmity. Conditions such as mental illness, obesity, hypertension and diabetes were looked at, with particular focus on the first. The reason for this special attention was that research showed that up to 50 percent of HIV patients also suffer from some form of mental illness.

The statistic has to do with the patients’ average age. Unfortunately, patients with HIV were much younger than those without HIV, with the difference being nearly a decade. Next, of the patients with HIV admitted to the hospital with a secondary condition, 7 percent died in the hospital. The time spent admitted in the hospital was 60 percent greater with HIV patients. The cost was much higher, too—over 75 percent more, in fact, than patients with no HIV infection.

These numbers show that education, reorganizing and planning may be necessary to reduce some of these numbers. This would mean that patients with HIV and secondary conditions might be able to reduce the amount of time spent in the hospital, thus reducing costs too. Awareness of the needs and severity of illness of HIV patients benefits not only the patients themselves but will help focus resources for medical institutions as well.

HIV and Heart Disease

HIV and heart disease seem to go hand in hand. It’s very common for an HIV-positive person to present with some form of cardiac disease. Just why this is and how it happens, however, has remained somewhat of a mystery. In order to help clarify why this is so, a study was conducted to see if HIV and the heart were actually related or if it was all just coincidental.

One theory as to why heart diseases such as hypertension and HIV are commonly seen together is that HIV tends to trigger an inflammatory response. This adversely affects the vascular system when it becomes a chronic issue. In order to gauge the factors that contribute to this, a study followed 65 HIV-positive patients. All participants had shortness of breath to some degree, and each was given an echocardiogram to determine his or her cardiac functions. After the tests and other risk factors were taken into consideration, it was noted that nearly half of the participants had some form of cardiac dysfunction or disease.

A review of the findings revealed some interesting pieces of information. Gender, age and whether or not AIDS was present had little to no effect on the level of cardiac dysfunction a patient had. The variable that seemed the most conclusive involved the amount of viral load in the blood. Patients with a high viral load were those with the most progressive level of heart disease. Those who had limited or undetectable traces of infection fared much better. The latter presented with no disease, or with heart disease that was just at the beginning stages.

Conclusive evidence exists that HIV, especially one presenting a high viral load in the blood, is directly related to the presence of heart disease. Armed with this knowledge, the medical community can, therefore, screen patients with HIV for heart disease and use viral load as an indicator for the probability of the development of cardiac dysfunction.