Managing the relationship between quality and cost-effective burn care

Cost-Effectiveness of a Nonpharmacological Intervention in Pediatric Burn Care

“…Burn care is resource intensive and requires specialist care [3]. With the challenge of health care budget constraints and the complexity of burn care, justifying the inclusion of cutting-edge treatments and interventions within a specialist burn center requires comprehensive economic evaluations to be undertaken.…”

“…Severity of injury does not predict psychological costs to the patient [4]. No quality-of-life measure has been specifically developed and validated for the pediatric burn population [3,5]. Financial accountability that extends beyond acute wound care and scar management and includes the complete long-term psychosocial costs to the patient makes the "true" costs of burns unquantifiable.…”

“…There is a great need for health research to extend beyond providing evidence of one practice being more effective than another. Changes in practice need to be quantified in monetary terms with an economic evaluation to determine the feasibility of implementing new cutting-edge treatments and interventions [3] and to justify setup costs to hospital administrators. Psychosocial costs to the patient include the pain, anxiety, and stress from the trauma of the burn injury itself and the associated wound care procedures and may encompass additional psychosocial issues resulting from the physical disfigurement of hypertrophic scarring.…”

Reduced Length of Stay in Hospital for Burn Patients Following a Change in Practice Guidelines

“…Such a study would be helpful to further analyze outcomes including exercise tolerance and quality of life. 2,17,18 This study was designed to illustrate the effect of one key driver of costs and is subject to various limitations. The most important limitation is incomplete cost data due to confidential hospital pricing agreements and lack of patient specific cost tracking.…”

“…Health care professionals are being required to justify costs in the current environment of limited resources and the expectation that funds be used efficiently. [2][3][4][5][6] The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada has advocated the role of "Manager" as a role for specialists and includes the wise allocation of finite health care resources. 7 Even the popular media has drawn attention to the importance of the wise use of limited health care resources.…”