Kathy Bicknell¹

¹ Royal Children’s Hospital, 50 Flemington Rd, Parkville, Vic, 2052. Kathy.bicknell@rch.org.au

In 2014 a retrospective clinical audit was undertaken to investigate the numbers of burns presentations, patterns of admission, length of stay and follow up in the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne (RCH) burns service between 2001 and 2013. One finding of the clinical audit demonstrated that inpatient admission numbers were decreasing and outpatient presentations increasing in prevalence. As a consequence, a second clinical audit was undertaken to prospectively gather information in 2015/16 about presentations to RCH burns clinic. Total numbers of new presentations, mechanism of injury, patient demographics and anatomical location of injury were collected to understand differences between inpatient admissions and outpatient presentations to assist with resource allocation and service development. In this presentation, results of the outpatient clinic data will be compared to the inpatient data of both the RCH burns service and the Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand (BRANZ).

Early results show that scald injuries remain the main cause of paediatric burns followed by contact, flame and friction and this is the same for data from both the RCH burn service and BRANZ.

Key Words

Paediatric
Outpatient
Burns

Biography

Kathy is the Burns Clinical Nurse Consultant at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. Kathy brings a vast amount of experience in general paediatric and paediatric burn care from over 20 years and has been in her current position for 6 years. In her role Kathy coordinates inpatient/outpatient care for burns patients, provides education to patients, families, nursing, medical and allied health internally and externally and in the community.