Journal of burn care & research : official publication of the American Burn Association
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There are few publications about demographics of Emergency Department (ED) burn patient visits. The purpose of this study was to compare ED only burn patients with admitted patients in an urban burn center. This was a retrospective review (1999 to 2014) of a burn unit patient registry. ⋯ Most of the ED-TB only patients (73%) came to the hospital themselves, 23% were transferred from other hospitals, and 2% each, direct from the scene and clinic. In contrast, 53% of admitted patients were transferred from other hospitals, 29% came in on their own, and 11% were brought in direct from the scene, or from the burn clinic (7%), P = .0001. This review suggests that the main reason for non-admission of ED-TB only patients was the severity of injury; ED-TB only patients had a significantly less severe %TBSA (P < .0001), and fewer comorbidities compared to admitted patients.