Developing clinical quality indicators for a Bi-National Burn Registry

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Burn Management
• Clinical Indicators

Background:

• Clinical quality indicators are crucial for healthcare benchmarking and improvement.
• A lack of standardized indicators for burn care hinders quality monitoring in Australia and New Zealand.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement standardized clinical quality indicators for burn care.
• To integrate these indicators into the Bi-National Burn Registry (Bi-NBR) for routine data collection.

Main Methods:

• Utilized established quality indicator development processes.
• Incorporated extensive clinician experience.
• Developed indicators for inclusion as routine data items in the Bi-NBR.

Main Results:

• Identified twenty indicators covering structure, process, and outcome measures.
• Revised indicators based on preliminary testing to enhance validity, reliability, and data quality.
• Established routine quarterly collection and reporting of these quality indicators within the Bi-NBR.

Conclusions:

• This study presents the first published development and testing of standardized Bi-National clinical quality indicators for burns.
• The Bi-NBR quality indicators project is ongoing, with hopes for further refinement and international collaboration to advance burn care.
• These indicators are now routinely collected and reported, facilitating quality assessment in burn management.