A Registry for Victorian Burns Victims [28.04.2010]

Burn injury is a distinct and significant component of injury in Victoria. Burn-related hospital admissions have increased significantly over the past decade with over 5,000 victims admitted per year for the past three years. The Black Saturday bushfires were a vivid reminder of the impact of burns, not only for the health system but also the individual. On 7 February 2009 and the days preceeding, 414 patients presented to hospital emergency departments as a result of the bushfires, with 22 patients referred to the state’s burns referral centres during that time. In the absence of routine comprehensive surveillance of burns patients across the state, the long term outcomes for these and other burns patients is unknown.

A collaborative project between Monash University, the Victorian Adult Burns Service (VABS) (The Alfred Hospital), The Royal Children’s Hospital, the Australia and New Zealand Burns Association and The Julian Burton Burns Trust to develop a Burns Clinical Quality Registry has been awarded a grant of $172,000 over two years by the Trust.

Development of the registry will ensure that accurate data for Victoria is captured on the epidemiology of burns, monitor health care performance and benchmarking quality of care and measure long term outcomes for Victorian burn survivors. The burns registry will allow for comprehensive surveillance of each burn event from the beginning to the end of care.

Currently VABS has a local registry to capture information on burn cases admitted to its service, however, this has substantial limitations. The Royal Children’s Hospital does not have a registry. The existing burns registry provides a framework for the different Victorian burns units to develop and expand the registry to ensure service provision can be monitored and benchmarking possible. The new Burns Clinical Quality Registry will enable this to happen. The Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, based at The Alfred hospital, will co-ordinate the Registry.