591 A 15-Year Review of Iatrogenic Burn Injuries in an Academic Public Hospital

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Hospital-acquired burn injuries can result in significant psychological and physical consequences for patients and their families. These injuries are typically rare, but when they do occur this can lead to increased length of hospitalization, costs of stay, and potential for additional procedures. The aim of this study is to describe iatrogenic burn injuries that occurred over a 15-year period at an academic public hospital system. Methods After Institutional Review Board approval this study collected data on patients sustaining iatrogenic burn injuries between January 2004 and June 2019 at a large, academic public hospital system. Data was obtained from an internal database of self-reported incidents. This data included: time of injury, location in the hospital, mechanism, level of harm caused, and anatomic location of the injury. Mean and standard deviation were calculated by year, and a two-tailed t test was used to assess for significance. Results 122 iatrogenic burn injuries met inclusion criteria and underwent focused analysis. Incidence of burn injuries were highest between 2005–2012 (average 12.3 ± 4.1 per year) as compared to 2013–2019 (average: 2.9 ± 2.1 per year). The difference between these time periods was statistically significant (P = 0.0001). A majority (77%) resulted in harm caused to the patient, with 13.1% of cases requiring additional treatment. Most (41%) of the injuries occurred on the general medical floors, followed by the operating room (33.6%). The most common etiology was hot liquid (23%), followed by electrocautery (14.8%) and other, unspecified medical devices (21.3%). None of the burn injuries had burn consults and none of these patients required surgery for their burn injuries despite the level of harm reported. Conclusions Iatrogenic burns are overall rare and appear to be decreasing in number over the last six years. While a large majority were reported to have caused patient harm, none required surgery and none had a burn consult while inpatient. The majority of the injuries occurred on the medical floors with a scald mechanism. This review highlights an opportunity for large academic medical systems to put more emphasis prevention in these situations as these are presumably avoidable. There is also an opportunity to reach out to the hospital system about the involvement of the burn team. In addition, this highlights the limitations of self-reported inpatient injuries as there may be under-reporting.