Epidemiology of Burn Injury and Demography of Burn Care Facilities

Age, occupation, and economic circumstances influence both the incidence of burn injury and the risk of burn death. Flame injury is the most common type of burn for which patients are admitted to burn centers, but scald injuries account for 30 of all burns necessitating admission to the hospital. Approximately 300 burn patients per million population require in-hospital care each year because of extent of burn or presence of a complicating factor. Forty- two per million population per year within that group require care at a burn center, where the personnel, equipment, and facilities necessary to address the multisystem effects of severe burn injury are available. Transfer of burn patients must be coordinated between originating and receiving physicians and is best done as soon as resuscitation has restored hemodynamic and pulmonary stability. The resources required to deliver this complex system of burn care are expensive. Current prospective payment methods result in large reimbursement deficits,and the national trend favoring such payment mechanisms threatens the future of burn centers.TTL