Vacuum Assisted Closure (VAC) at Home: Developing a New Concept

BACKGROUND: The vacuum assisted closure (VAC) therapy has revolutionized the modern wound care. We developed a new concept of ‘VAC at home’ in order to decrease the hospital cost. METHODS: The study was conducted in a private hospital from January 2009 to December 2010. Only those patients were included among whom the wounds were not complicated by concomitant injury and the patients were otherwise fit to be discharged from the hospital. The VAC was applied in the hospital. The VAC changes were done after 48-72 hours depending on the general wound conditions. The cost of the VAC changes during the therapy at home was compared with the expected cost of hospital stay. RESULTS: Thirteen patients were enrolled with a female to male ratio of 1.6:1. The mean age of male patients was 22.4 years as compared to 29.6 years in females. Road traffic accident was the most common cause. Leg (16.2%) was the commonly affected area. The average number of VACs was 15.8. The average cost of the suction machine was 100.1 USD. The average cost of the expected hospital stay during the whole therapy was 68 USD per day. The mean duration of therapy was 35.8 days. The average total cost to be paid to the hospital was 2434.4 USD. Each patient had definitely saved a net of 2739.7 USD. CONCLUSION: With the increasing experiences of VAC, it can safely be instituted as an ‘outpatient’ procedure to decrease the hospital cost at home.