Caseload, treatment diagnoses, and evaluation of clinical care concepts for infectious diseases at a municipal tertiary care hospital in Germany
5 affiliations
- 1Hospital Pharmacy, Hospital St. Georg, Leipzig, Germany
- 2Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Hospital St. Georg, Leipzig, Germany
- 3Department of Finance and Controlling, Hospital St. Georg, Leipzig, Germany
- 4Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Department of Medicine I, Leipzig University Medical Center, Liebigstr. 20, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
- 5Interdisciplinary Center for Infectious Diseases, Leipzig University Medical Center, Leipzig, Germany
Abstract
Background: Comprehensive data on municipal specialized infectious disease (ID) departments in Germany are scarce.
Purpose: To analyze ID cases at Hospital St. Georg in Leipzig with regard to patient characteristics, spectrum of infections, care concepts, length of stay (LOS), clinical outcomes, and economic indicators.
Methods: Retrospective descriptive analysis of all adult inpatient cases between January 2020 and December 2025.
Results: Of 17,878 adult patients (11.5% of all patients) discharged with a primary ID diagnosis, 28.7% (5,135/17,878) were treated as inpatients in the 40-bed ID department itself, while 3.8% (671/17,878) received organ-specific treatment in another specialty department with concurrent care provided by the antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) team, and 5.2% (935/17,878) received care via the ID consultation service (telephone consultations not included). A total of 4,492 individual ICD-10 codes were assigned, with 740 of them being classified as ID diagnoses. ID patients were older (median 70 vs. 66 years) and more frequently male (59% vs. 51%) than the reference population. The median LOS was longer for ID patients (7.0 vs. 4.1 days). The median case-mix index (CMI) was 1.344 (€ 5,356 per case) in the ID population vs. 1.113 (€ 4,352 per case) in the reference group.
Conclusions: This six-year analysis shows that ID patients represent a significant, complex, and older inpatient population with longer LOS, causing high clinical burden. Since coding data suggest that 62.3% of these patients did not receive specific treatment by ID specialists, there is potential for expanding structured ID consultation and AMS services, requiring additional resources.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y.
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BibTeX
@article{marx2026caseload,
title = {{Caseload, treatment diagnoses, and evaluation of clinical care concepts for infectious diseases at a municipal tertiary care hospital in Germany}},
author = {Kathrin Marx and Nils Kellner and Nadja Herrmann and Christoph Lübbert},
journal = {Infection},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Caseload, treatment diagnoses, and evaluation of clinical care concepts for infectious diseases at a municipal tertiary care hospital in Germany
AU - Kathrin Marx
AU - Nils Kellner
AU - Nadja Herrmann
AU - Christoph Lübbert
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/31
JO - Infection
DO - 10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y
AB - Background: Comprehensive data on municipal specialized infectious disease (ID) departments in Germany are scarce. Purpose: To analyze ID cases at Hospital St. Georg in Leipzig with regard to patient characteristics, spectrum of infections, care concepts, length of stay (LOS), clinical outcomes, and economic indicators. Methods: Retrospective descriptive analysis of all adult inpatient cases between January 2020 and December 2025. Results: Of 17,878 adult patients (11.5% of all patients) discharged with a primary ID diagnosis, 28.7% (5,135/17,878) were treated as inpatients in the 40-bed ID department itself, while 3.8% (671/17,878) received organ-specific treatment in another specialty department with concurrent care provided by the antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) team, and 5.2% (935/17,878) received care via the ID consultation service (telephone consultations not included). A total of 4,492 individual ICD-10 codes were assigned, with 740 of them being classified as ID diagnoses. ID patients were older (median 70 vs. 66 years) and more frequently male (59% vs. 51%) than the reference population. The median LOS was longer for ID patients (7.0 vs. 4.1 days). The median case-mix index (CMI) was 1.344 (€ 5,356 per case) in the ID population vs. 1.113 (€ 4,352 per case) in the reference group. Conclusions: This six-year analysis shows that ID patients represent a significant, complex, and older inpatient population with longer LOS, causing high clinical burden. Since coding data suggest that 62.3% of these patients did not receive specific treatment by ID specialists, there is potential for expanding structured ID consultation and AMS services, requiring additional resources. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-026-02902-y.
SN - 0300-8126
SN - 1439-0973
ER -