A silver-impregnated antimicrobial dressing reduces hospital costs for pediatric burn patients.

Purpose: Since 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.

Methods: We 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.

Results: Total 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.

Discussion: These 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.