{"id":621064,"date":"2026-04-21T09:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621064\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:16:07","slug":"pediatric-burn-care-gaps-demand-urgent-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621064\/","title":{"rendered":"Pediatric Burn Care Gaps Demand Urgent Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orange, Calif. \u2014 The UCI Health Regional Burn Center<\/a> is one of the only burn centers in Orange County equipped to treat the most complex burn patients 24 hours a day, including children.<\/p>\n

Orange County is not unique in that such centers are few and far between. That is a major problem, say experts in a review paper co-authored by Dr. James C. Jeng<\/a> , a trauma, burn and critical care surgeon at UCI Health.<\/p>\n

In its current state, the United States is not prepared for a mass disaster with multiple burn casualties, says the paper.<\/p>\n

Gaps in the availability of everyday burn care for children must be addressed before it will be considered ready.<\/p>\n

” Current status of U.S. children’s burn care and opportunities for change<\/a> ” was published in The Annals of Surgery Open<\/a> in January 2026.<\/p>\n

An uneven network<\/p>\n

“The current system is an uneven network with varying skill levels, resources and access,” the authors state.<\/p>\n

Children receive care for burns in a range of settings, from verified burn centers to acute care hospitals that provide burn care. Fewer than 40 of the 75 American Burn Association-verified programs are verified for pediatrics.<\/p>\n

The authors state that climate change and the threat of nuclear, biological and other disasters has heightened the need to understand this network better to prepare it for a large-scale burn casualty event.<\/p>\n

To identify these gaps, they convened an in-person children’s burn initiative to:<\/p>\n

Improve the understanding of where routine and specialist burn care is delivered in the United StatesDefine gaps in children’s burn care, including in the emergency care systemAnticipate a plan of action and strategy for implementation<\/p>\n

The group will meet again in a year to review progress.<\/p>\n

‘Children are not small adults’<\/p>\n

A serious burn for an adult is not the same as it would be for a child.<\/p>\n

“Children are not small adults,” says UCI Health Regional Burn Center Medical Director Dr. Syed F. Saquib<\/a> . “Burns affect their growth, development and their long-term quality of life.”<\/p>\n

ABA-verified burn centers such as the one at UCI Health, the county’s first, have the resources and expertise to give pediatric burn patients age-specific, family-centered care from injury through recovery. It is also the only burn center in the county affiliated with an academic health system leading innovative research.<\/p>\n

In 2025, there were 153 pediatric burn visits, which nearly evenly split between children who could return home and those who required inpatient care.<\/p>\n

Children, which account for more than 1 in 4 burn cases at UCI Health, are most commonly injured by:<\/p>\n

Scalds (67%): hot liquids, bathwater, soups or drinksContact (22%): hot surfaces, appliances or toolsFlame (6%): fires, open flame<\/p>\n

Jeng is also a professor in the Division of Trauma, Burns, Surgical Critical Care in the Department of Surgery at the UC Irvine School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

UCI Health Research<\/a><\/p>\n

About UCI Health<\/p>\n

UCI Health, one of California’s largest academic health systems, is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. The 1,461-bed system comprises its main campus UCI Health \u2014 Orange<\/a> , its flagship hospital, the UCI Health \u2014 Irvine<\/a> acute care hospital and medical campus, four hospitals and affiliated physicians of the UCI Health Community Network in Orange and Los Angeles counties and a network of ambulatory care centers across the region. UCI Health \u2014 Orange provides tertiary and quaternary care and is home to the only Orange County-based National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center<\/a> , high-risk perinatal\/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center<\/a> , gold level 1 geriatric emergency department and regional burn center<\/a><\/p>\n

\/Public Release. This material from the originating organization\/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange, Calif. \u2014 The UCI Health Regional Burn Center is one of the only burn centers in Orange…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-621064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}