Background: Burn centers can suffer from irregular patient loads and underutilization of surgeon skills. These problems can lead to inconsistent staff utilization, inconsistent facility utilization, and surgeon dissatisfaction, all of which can impair the growth and sustainability of a burn center. The JMS Burn and Reconstruction Center is the only burn unit in Mississippi.
Within this exclusive practice area, we have explored the effects of expanding our post-burn hand reconstruction service to a non-burn emergency and elective hand practice.
Methods: Practice data were reviewed to assess growth of specific elements of this unit’s practice over the 9 years of the center’s activity. Referrals for non-burn hand cases were initially accepted in the fourth year of the practice.
Results: The table summarizes the center’s development. Annual burn admissions, primary and secondary burn cases, and total cases increased 48%, 170%, 236%, and 254% respectively between year 1 and year 9. Non-burn hand cases increased 993% over the same period and accounted for 41% of the center’s cases in year 9 compared to 13% in year 1.
Conclusions: This burn unit’s expansion into non-burn hand surgery has resulted in a major increase in surgical volume. This result has coincided with increased staffing, OR block time, and facility space. Such practice element expansion should be considered as a strategy for burn center development.

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