Along with devastating the health of patients already recovering from some other medical malady, the hospital-acquired infection Clostridium difficile is also a financial hardship for hospitals. According to a new study by group purchasing giant Premier, Inc. and Cubist Pharmaceuticals, each case of C. diff raises an individual patient's cost of care by 40 percent, or $7,285 on average. Their length of stay also increases an average of 55 percent, or nearly five days on average. Moreover, patients who contract C. diff are also 77 percent more likely of being readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge than those patients who are not infected. Read the full article at FierceHealthcare