• Heather N Paddock, Renata Fabia, Shelia Giles, John Hayes, Wendi Lowell, Dawn Adams, and Gail E Besner.
• Department of Pediatric Surgery, Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH 43205, USA.
• J. Pediatr. Surg. 2007 Jan 1;42(1):211-3.

PurposeSince using a novel silver-impregnated antimicrobial dressing (Aquacel Ag, ConvaTec, Princeton, NJ) in our pediatric patients with partial-thickness burns, hospital LOS has been significantly reduced. Here we investigated whether there was concomitant cost-effectiveness of this approach.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed Burn Registry Data from a large Children's Hospital Burn Unit from January 2005 through August 2005 for inpatients with partial-thickness burns treated with Aquacel Ag. A comparison group was composed of patients from the same period the previous year treated with silver sulfadiazine cream (SSD, Par Pharmaceuticals, Woodcliff, NJ) and matched for age and %TBSA burned. Patients with inhalation injury or full-thickness burns were excluded. Intent-to-treat analysis was limited to patients with less than 22% TBSA burn. Direct costs and total charges were compared statistically after log transformation due to the skewedness of the data.ResultsTotal charges and direct costs were significantly lower for Aquacel Ag-treated patients (n = 38) than for SSD-treated patients (n = 39) (P = .004 and P < .001, respectively). In addition, Aquacel Ag-treated patients had a shorter LOS than SSD-treated patients.DiscussionThese data strongly support our findings that the application of Aquacel Ag reduces hospital LOS which results in a significant cost savings in the care of pediatric patients with partial-thickness burns.

20 keywords...

hide…