Anne Darton¹, Institute of Trauma Injury & Management²

¹ NSW Statewide Burn Injury Service Agency for Clinical Innovation, Level 6, CSB, Royal North shore Hospital, St Leonards, NSW, 2065, anne.darton@health.nsw.gov.au
² NSW Institute of Trauma and Injury Management, Agency for Clinical Innovation, Level 4, Sage Bld, 67 Albert Ave, Chatswood, NSW 2067

Introduction

The NSW Statewide Burn Injury Service (SBIS) worked with the NSW Institute of Trauma & Injury Management (ITIM), networks within the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, to develop a clinical support; the ITIM Trauma App. It provides a ‘one stop’ resource to assist clinicians in caring for the traumatically injured patients, including burns, from the initial resuscitation to stabilisation and transfer to a regional or major trauma service.

Method

Three months post ‘soft launch’ of the app an analysis was conducted. This included a Survey of Registered users and online analytics tools. The survey was sent via email to all registered users (n=1,991) of the 147 recipients that opened the survey 131 responded.

Results

Downloads by operating system; 27% Android, 73% iOs

Registrations by profession; 46% Nurses, 29% Doctors, 18% Paramedics, 7% Other

Clinical use; 39% Emergency department, 27% Pre-hospital, 10%, Inter-hospital, 10% Critical care, 9% Ward, 5% Other

Calculators were the most used feature (90%) followed by Guidelines and Policies (60%)and of those 20 calculators the Burns TBSA and Parkland Formula calculators were the most used (adult 20%, paediatric 12%)

Conclusion

The app appears to be a user friendly tool that is improving access to trauma resources.

Next Steps

Other jurisdictions outside of NSW are interested in using the app and have the capacity to include local guidelines and resources.

Based on the results of the survey and direct feedback from clinicians there are further enhancements for the app being developed including improvements in the burn calculators. Watch this space!

Key Words

Burn injury, trauma, app, checklist, parkland formula, TBSA

Biography

Anne Darton is a registered physiotherapist and worked clinically for twenty years; much of this was in the Burn Unit at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Since 2003 she has worked in the directorate for the NSW Statewide Burn Injury Service, Agency for Clinical Innovation, initially as the Allied Health Coordinator then as the Clinical Network Manager. In this role she is responsible for monitoring, supporting and improving burn care throughout NSW in collaboration with the multidisciplinary governing committee.  She is an active member of the Australian & New Zealand Burn Association and is currently the secretary of this organisation.