The additional hospital costs of the LAURA cochlear implant in the department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery of the University Hospital of Leuven
G. Vantrappen et al., The additional hospital costs of the LAURA cochlear implant in the department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery of the University Hospital of Leuven, EUR ARCH OT, 256(9), 1999, pp. 434-438
From the start of 1994 until 1996 ten patients (eight adults and two childr
en) received cochlear implants after careful preoperative selection in our
department. Only the deaf adults implanted with the LAURA cochlear implant
were included in this retrospective analysis. In this study, the additional
hospital costs associated with cochlear implantations were estimated. In d
oing this, a differentiation was made between 'fixed' costs and 'variable'
costs. In general, the average cost of cochlear implantation was 1,186,741
BF (29,418.54 EUR) per implanted adult and a direct fixed cost of 262,880 B
F (6,516.62 EUR) was needed for the computer requisites. In general, the co
chlear implant enhance speech-perception scores in the postlingually deafen
ed patients as well as in the prelingually deafened adults. After intensive
training, all implanted adults of the University Hospital Leuven could rec
ognize the segmental aspects of speech with scores above the level of signi
ficance.