The Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand (BRANZ) is a clinical quality registry capturing epidemiological, quality of care, and outcome data for adult and paediatric burn patients across Australian and New Zealand burn units.
The purpose of the BRANZ is to monitor burn injury incidence, burn injury causation, and to identify objective and verifiable data on treatment, outcomes and quality of care with the principal objective to encourage higher standards of both burn injury prevention and patient care. The BRANZ project is collaboration between the Australian and New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA) and Monash University, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (DEPM).
Since 2008 the BRANZ has established itself as a world-leading repository for burns data. Currently 16 out of 17 burn units have ethics approval and 15 sites have contributed data to the third annual report. Governance processes and reporting schedule are in place: the Bi-NBR is compliant with 33 of the 42 ACSQHC operating principles, is partially compliant with three, and has plans to comply with the remaining six operating principles as the BRANZ matures further. Nineteen quality indicators are embedded within the BRANZ and reported on. A routine quarterly and annual reporting schedule is in place, and three annual reports have so far been published.
Pilot projects collecting long term functional and quality of life outcomes for adult and paediatric burn patients have been completed. Three papers in peer reviewed journals have been published, and several multisite collaborative research and clinical review projects are underway. These projects involve examination of areas such as pre-hospital management of potential inhalation injury, transfer practices, the effect of first aid delivery, protocols for use of skin substitutes in severe burns, and the effect of critical care and surgical practices on outcomes.
The BRANZ has been critically important in describing the epidemiology of burn injuries and informing burn injury prevention strategies and the development of safety standards in Australia and New Zealand. High risk groups for burn injury include toddlers at risk of scald burn injuries from hot beverages and young adult males throwing petrol on to fire. In collaboration with the Julian Burton Burns Trust, ANZBA has developed two Community Service Announcements targeting young males and the carers of toddlers. The BRANZ data has also been a source of data for other key stakeholder groups involved in the prevention of burn injury. These include fire services, industry groups and organizations such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and other consumer advisory groups involved in the development or review of safety standards, product design and legislation.
However for burn clinicians, the most significant achievement of the BRANZ is the development of a common dataset with benchmarks for burn care and patient outcomes. Through the BiNBR, the burns care community has developed the Burn Quality Improvement Program (BQIP) with the capacity to monitor the type and quality of burn care management, and drive advancements in burns treatments.
Visit the website: www.branz.org