282 Revisions in the National Burn Repository Improve Firefighter Injury Data Capture

Abstract

Approximately 60,000-70,000 firefighters suffer work related injuries per year in the United States. While most incidents are related to mechanical trauma, approximately 10% occur from burns, smoke inhalation, or heat-related injuries. Previous analyses of the National Burn Repository, the most comprehensive burn injury database of patients treated at burn centers, suggest that not all records of firefighter injuries from burn centers are being captured. The etiology of the discrepancy is multifactorial, but at least partially tied to inconsistency in selecting the patient’s occupation. In order to more thoroughly capture data, an additional field was added to the NBR in 2016, where the registrar has to designate whether or not the patient was a firefighter. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the revisions have increased the number of firefighters included in the NBR. The 2016-2017 NBR was reviewed and records where the patient was reported as a firefighter were extracted and analyzed. They were compared to the data from the previous NBR analyses before the database was modified, 2002-2010. A descriptive analysis was then performed. The revised NBR captured 102 firefighter injuries over the year, in contrast to a mean of 52.5 per year in the older data set before revisions. Thirty burn centers reported treated a firefighter injury, compared to 46 over the 9 year period of the previous analysis. Size of burn injury was captured on 68/102 patients. Of the 68 with data, 88% had an injury <10% TBSA. Six patients suffered inhalation injury. None of the patients included in the study suffered mortality. The revisions in the National Burn Repository have improved the rate of firefighter injury capture in the database. Preliminary data suggests that the number of NBR records per year has doubled without an increase in total injuries across the US. However, long-term data is still lacking and this trend needs to be further studied over the course of time. When more data emerges, trends should be analyzed to develop targets for outreach, education, and preventative safety measures. Firefighters are a unique patient population that should be treated in burn centers, thus we should understand their injury statistics