Seatbelt use to save money: Impact on hospital costs of occupants who are involved in motor vehicle crashes

Motor vehicle crashes (MVC) are a leading cause of injury and death around the world. In the United States (U.S.), according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 32,719 persons died and 2.31 million persons were injured due to MVC in 2013 (NHTSA, 2013). In addition, MVC injuries also resulted in substantial costs to families and society. For example, there were 2,519,471 emergency department visits resulting from crash injuries in 2012 (Bergen et al., 2014). Approximately 7.5% of these emergency department visits were transferred to a hospital resulting in 1,057,465 hospital days for these hospitalized patients (Bergen et al., 2014).
Source: International Emergency Nursing - Category: Nursing Authors: Source Type: research