Safe pathways: Discharge planning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children following burn injury: A quality improvement approach

Background

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children present with burn injuries covering larger body surface areas, suffer full thickness burns and require hospital admission more often and for longer than other Australian children.
• Lack of cultural safety, communication gaps between service providers and family members and institutional racism have been identified as major barriers to accessing appropriate aftercare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children following a burn injury.

Aims

• We aim to develop a model of care that will be integrated in the burns clinic and will enhance burn care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families.
• The model of care will deliver a culturally safe, structured discharge plan and ongoing follow up support aftercare for children and their family.

Method

• Safe pathways will co-develop, implement, and evaluate a patient-centred discharge and follow up model of care.
• It will be developed in partnership with an Aboriginal Health worker, team members from the burn unit at the Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.
• A Building Cultural Capability training program will be delivered to develop cultural safety capabilities among the team members of the burn services.

Potential Impact

• The delivery of accessible, high quality, ongoing and culturally safe burn aftercare can reduce the risk of burn complications such as infection and contractures.
• This project will build evidence that is inclusive of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in order to change clinical guidelines and practices.
• Outcomes from the study have the potential to be transferable to other medical contexts such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults with burns or chronic health conditions.

Fast Facts

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with burn injury require hospital length of stay 5 days longer than Other Australian children.
• Institutionalized racism, lack of cultural safety, communication gaps and distance to medical treatments, negatively affect children’s access to burn aftercare.
• Involvement of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health Workers facilitate communication, enable aftercare, and alleviate fear and anxiety in children and families.

The project is in partnership with The Sydney Children’s Hospital at Westmead, The Sydney Children’s Hospital Network, Agency for Clinical Innovations, National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners (NAATSIHWP), Flinders University and Wollongong University.it is supported by Commonwealth Department of Health – Indigenous Australian’s Health Program,