Using teleconsultation to enhance the care of patients with acute burns

Abstract

Introduction: Real-time healthcare consultation via video-link (‘teleconsultation’) is already an established modality for supporting the acute management of patients with stroke and has been successfully utilised in a range of other areas (e.g. trauma management). This presentation will discuss the experiences of using teleconsultation in a different clinical specialty – the management of acute burns. The project involves seven hospitals in the North of England. Three of these pilot sites are burns units, whilst the other four are Emergency Departments (EDs) in hospitals without specialist burns facilities. Traditional practice involves the EDs referring and transferring patients to the burns units on the basis of telephone information with no visual support. Aims and objectives: By allowing specialist burns practitioners to assess visually the extent and severity of injuries whilst patients remain in the referring ED, the project aims to; • reduce the number of inappropriate transfers to burns services • expedite appropriate transfers and ensure that burns units are prepared optimally for receiving patients • improve knowledge and skills in non-specialist EDs, thereby enhancing the management of burns It is hoped that lessons from the project will support the mainstreaming of teleconsultation as an adjunct to acute care delivery. Project approach: The technical infrastructure for the project comprises video-enabled teleconsultation ‘carts’ deployed at each of the participating sites. To facilitate the specialist needs of burns management, the teleconsultation carts were fitted with high-fidelity, close-up cameras. In addition to procurement and installation, other preparatory steps involved with the project included the development of clinical guidelines that embedded teleconsultation procedures into