Mr Dane Holden^1,4, Ms Yvonne Singer¹, Dr Aiden Burrell³, Dr  Marc Schnekenburger³, Karen  Macmillan¹, A/prof Heather  Cleland^1,4

¹Victorian Adult Burns Service, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ²Intensive Care Unit, The Alfred Hospital, Melbounre, Australia, ³Emergency and Trauma Centre, The Alfred Hospital, Melbounre, Australia, ⁴Monash University, Department of Surgery, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract:

Improving patient safety during admission of severe burns patients at the Victorian Adult Burns
Patients with severe burns have emergent, specific and resource intensive needs that require specialist attention on arrival to the Emergency Department (ED). Recent incidents including unbalanced fluid resuscitation, challenges with re-warming and delayed transfers to ICU at the Victorian Adult Burn Service (VABS) have highlighted additional patient safety risks when patients with severe burns arrive outside of business hours.
System-wide changes across Alfred Health have been implemented to improve patient care and safety in this high-risk situation. This presentation will provide an overview of organisational data used to understand the problem, and the implementation of strategies designed to facilitate a 2hour disposition from the ED to the ICU. This includes the implementation of the following:
– Major burns checklist and guideline
– Early senior staff (consultant/SR) involvement
– Standardised ICU admission process
– Nurse on-call model
– Burns, ICU and Emergency Multi-disciplinary meeting
Real time evaluation is currently in place, and we will provide a preliminary view of organisational data used to inform these changes

Biography:

Full time Burns surgeon, Victorian adult burns service
Adjunct Senior Lecture in Surgery, Monash University