Over 500,000 people are injured by burn injuries every year in the United States, but none have investigated the impact on the healthcare system. Although the majority of participants in the study had burn wounds that healed without significant scarring, the reduced healthcare utilization and higher healthcare costs following acute care discharge have been documented in previous studies. The study looks at burn patients’ use of post-acute care hospitals. A review of the Truven MarketScan (MS) database for commercial claims data was undertaken. In a 10-year MS sample, 23,262 individuals with burn injuries were identified and matched to a control group at a 1:1 ratio based on age, sex, and overall time in the database. Pre-burn and post-burn usage of therapy, emergency department visits, nutritional care, psychiatry/psychology appointments, home health services, skilled nursing facility visits, inpatient stays, and outpatient treatments were collected for the study’s burn patient population. Researchers defined the pre-burn and post-burn periods for controls using the matched case’s burn date plus the pair’s relative difference in initial enrollment into the MS database, then recorded the same utilization measures. To assess the data, a series of negative binomial regressions were run. For every outcome except skilled nursing facility, healthcare utilization was higher in the pre-injury burn group than controls at the research conclusion. There was a significant difference in healthcare utilization between survivors of burn injuries and healthy comparison subjects for each outcome, compared to controls. Healthcare utilization is significantly higher for at least 25 months post-injury in burn patients versus controls, despite best efforts to return to normal. The healthcare use of burn patients is greater before and after burn injury in a commercial claims database study, according to the findings. The percentage of irrigated acres in the 25-month follow-up period was 43% lower than at baseline, indicating that water efficiency is not restored. Patients with burn injuries also have greater healthcare usage before the accident compared to comparable controls, which may imply a substantial disparity in baseline health among these patients and an opportunity for injury prevention.
Source:academic.oup.com/jbcr/article/43/Supplement_1/S1/6552430
