The evolution of burn care facilities in the United States.

This historical review documents the establishment and current status of specialized burn care facilities opened in the United States since 1947, describes trends in their physical configuration and burn bed availability and discusses the terms used to classify those facilities. Lists of active burn care facilities were reviewed, including primarily the Burn Care Resource directories of the American Burn Association, which date back to 1976, along with the results of special surveys carried out by the authors in 1992 and 2006. Of the burn facilities at 175 US hospitals which had reported the presence of specialized burn beds since 1947, 25 had closed before 1992, 153 have been active as recently as 1992, and 125 were active as of early 2007.