614 Addressing Increasing Mental Health Needs in Burn Patient Population: Dedicated Burn Center Psychologist

Abstract

Abstract Introduction During the past four years, mental health coverage at our burn center has evolved and become more robust. The emotional aspects of burn recovery are well documented; patients often present with co-morbid psychological conditions and develop psychological conditions as a result of the traumatic experience of their injury and subsequent hospitalization. To address this need, our burn center created a burn psychology fellowship and hired a dedicated full-time attending psychologist. Methods The burn center medical director has advocated for increased mental health support for several years. Mental health support was initially provided by the Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison team, and primarily focused on medication management for patients with severe mental illness. Recognizing the need for additional support, the burn center hired a part-time psychologist. After two years of part-time dedicated psychology coverage, a full-time position was approved. Through quantitative data review over the past several years, the number of patients with psychiatric diagnoses and the number of patients connected to mental health treatment during their hospitalization was analyzed. Results The overall patient census at the burn center has increased over the past several years (n=319 FY2016 vs n=506 FY2020). Burn patients with mental health diagnoses has increased along with and beyond the overall patient census growth; 34% (n=173) of patients admitted had a documented psych diagnosis in FY2020 compared to just 21% (n=68) of patients admitted in FY2016. Conclusions Integrating full-time psychology coverage dedicated to the burn center has allowed our patients to be evaluated and treated sooner, which has resulted in shortened time to psychotherapy and psychiatric medication management, and improved discharge planning to include outpatient mental health treatment. A full-time burn psychologist has improved holistic patient care of our burn patient population to positively aid in their overall recovery process.