Innovations in burn care: Prediction of operating room costs

Because cost containment is an important issue in health care today, a retrospective analysis of expense versus body surface area (BSA) burn was done in 270 pediatric cases to develop a prediction of future costs. When the resultant predictor was applied to a subsequent 167 patients based on BSA burn, projected costs and number of operative, procedures came, within 7% of actual costs. The study offers a reliable means of using retrospective cost data for projecting future costs for a patient population and shows that operating room (OR) supply costs per procedure are not a constant, but increase in a logarithmic relationship to BSA burn. Thus, OR costs cannot he quantitated solely on a per procedure basis rather, the level of BSA burn severity is an integral part of individual operative procedure, costs.