To investigate the distribution and characteristics of medical resources for burn victims in Shanghai.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in May 2017 to make letters and telephone visits to 33 burn treatment hospitals registered by shanghai municipal heath and family planning commission, which can carry out burn treatment. The investigation indexes included the basic situation of the hospital, burn surgery settings, doctors and nurses number and distribution characteristics, specialist equipments for burns, and burn casualties in 2016.

Only 19 of the 33 registered units actually carried out burn treatment, 18 of which were distributed in Puxi district and 11 of which had burn specialties. In these 11 burn-specialty settings hospitals, the doctor-to-nurse ratio was about 1∶2(112∶213), and the bed-to-doctor ratio was about 3∶2∶1 (350∶213∶112). The distribution of professional titles of full-time doctors was inverted pyramid (senior: intermediate: primary=50∶43∶19), full-time nurses distributed pyramid (senior: intermediate: primary=23∶73∶117), but there were only 9 full-time technicians in burn unit in the whole city, including rehabilitation and respiratory therapists mainly. The burn department in Shanghai were relatively well-equipped, including 45 turn-over beds, 18 scarecrow-type beds for burned children, 7 medical suspension beds, 21 ventilators, 102 ECG monitors, 16 motor dermatomes and 24 drum skin grafting machines. The total number of outpatient clinics, emergency departments , annual hospitalization and operation volum was about 135 000, 29 000, 4 800 and 4 700 respectively.

The distribution of medical resources for burn treatment in Shanghai is relatively balanced and reasonable, but the burn surgery in some districts still needs to be strengthened; the number of specialists in burn treatment is slightly increased, but the number and structure of specialists are still few and unreasonable; the task of treatment is arduous, and the construction of emergency network for burn treatment and the optimization of medical resources are still to be strengthened.