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Burned in the Operating Room
- Article from:
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AANA Journal
- Article date:
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April 1, 2005
- Author:
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Copyright informationCopyright AANA Publishing, Inc. Apr 2005. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Burn injury in the operating room has been defined as a "...significant source of morbidity for patients and a source of liability..." This conclusion comes from the analysis of 145 burn injury claims in the 6,449 claims of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Closed Claims Project database.
Burn injuries were less severe than most of the claims in the database. In fact, 93 percent of the burn injuries were temporary or nondisabling. Only one death occurred, due to an airway fire. Payments were relatively low (median of $48,260) when compared to other claims (median of $175,800).
The most common locations of burns were:
*Trunk/axilla (28 percent with 80 percent of these burns ...