The cost of tachyarrhythmia management.

Health economy measures in the United States demand that physicians develop more cost effective approaches to the management of patients who have tachyarrhythmias. Accordingly, the hospital records of 47 patients admitted for electrophysiologic evaluations were reviewed. The average length hospital stay for patients who had ventricular tachycardia was 32 days (range: 7-75) and the average cost of hospitalization was $41,988 (range: $6,299-131,259) per patient. Hospitalization costs were significantly less for 14 patients who had supraventricular tachycardia and for 10 patients who were evaluated for syncope of uncertain etiology. The cost of hospitalization correlated significantly with the length of hospital stay (r = 0.98). Therefore, new approaches to managing critical arrhythmias are needed; these include outpatient surveillance and intervention systems, use of potentially curative therapies; e.g. resection or ablation application of electrical devices capable of detecting and terminating lethal arrhythmias.