Developing clinical quality indicators for a Bi-National Burn Registry

Background: Clinical quality indicators are routinely used to benchmark and drive improvements in healthcare. There is a dearth of standardised clinical quality indicators established for management of burns that allow quality of care to be monitored and benchmarked across Australia and New Zealand.

Method: Using published quality indicator development processes and clinician experience, the Bi-National Burn Registry (Bi-NBR) working party developed quality indicators for burn care to be included as routine data items in the Bi-NBR.

Results: Twenty indicators covering structure, process and outcome measures were identified. Preliminary testing resulted in further revision to the quality indicators to increase validity, reliability and improve data quality. The quality indicators are routinely collected in the Bi-NBR and reported quarterly.

Conclusion: This is the first published account of the development and testing of standardised Bi-National clinical quality indicators for burns. The Bi-NBR quality indicators project remains a work in progress and it is hoped that further refinement of the indicators, in conjunction with international collaborators will assist in driving improvements in burn care.