Protection of patient information

The Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) stores patient clinical information and contact details in secure, password protected records systems to enable staff to provide effective ongoing care.

As part of the RHH's quality improvement process, information may be collected from patient medical records to assist with overall management of other patients with similar conditions. This information is not used outside the RHH and the information gathered does not identify patients.

As part of the medical care of people with burn injuries in Australia and New Zealand, particular information regarding a patient's burn injury will be sent to the Australian & New Zealand Burns Registry (BRANZ). Patients may choose to opt out of this process and should advise medical or nursing staff if this is the case.

Australian & New Zealand Burns Registry (BRANZ)

The Australian and New Zealand Burns Registry (BRANZ) is a clinical quality registry which collects epidemiological, quality of care, and outcome data for adult and paediatric burn patients across all Australian and New Zealand burn units.

The registry is a joint project of the Australian and New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA) and Monash University, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (DEPM).

The Australia & New Zealand Burn Association (ANZBA) is a professional organisation of burns care professionals; its main objective is to encourage higher standards of burn injury prevention and burn patient care through research and education.

The aim of the BRANZ registry is to:

• Describe the epidemiology of adult and paediatric burns and carry out injury surveillance,
• Monitor the quality and types of care provided to burns patients, and
• Establish the clinical outcomes of burns patients.

The identity of individual patients is not provided to the registry. The patient's name and address are removed from the report before it goes to BRANZ.

The information collected includes

• age,
• gender,
• ethnicity,
• postcode,
• date of injury,
• total burn size,
• inhalation injury,
• cause of burn,
• circumstances of injury,
• place of occurrence,
• total ICU days,
• total length of stay in hospital,
• date of discharge,
• coding and
• complications.

Patients are encouraged to have information included in the registry as it enables clinicians to compare their results across Australia and New Zealand to ensure treatment is the most effective.

The BRANZ Annual Report and further information on the Registry is available online: http://www.branz.org

The Royal Hobart Hospital Tasmanian Burns Unit Local Database

The RHH Tasmanian Burns Unit uses its own local data registry to record and support patient care. The database is password protected and accessible only by clinicians directly involved in the patient's care. The database is also used to provide clinicians with easily accessible information if patients have queries after discharge.

Digital Imaging

The RHH Tasmanian Burns Unit uses digital images of wounds/scars to facilitate wound management. These images are stored on the password protected database and are used to document patient progress.

These photos may also be exhibited, shown or reproduced by the RHH for medical, scientific or educational purposes. Sometimes wound images may be sent to the patient's GP or community nurse to provide continuity of care following discharge. At no time can identifying characteristics be recognised and these images are not used for commercial purposes or gain.

Telehealth

To facilitate appropriate review and minimise travel time to Hobart, Telehealth may be used pre- admission and/or on discharge. This allows the RHH Tasmanian Burns Unit to view a patient's wound, possible scars and assess their function through the use of video conferencing.

The session is recorded and may be exhibited, shown or reproduced by the RHH for medical, scientific or educational purposes. The images are stored on a password protected database.

Consent for patients accessing the Royal Hobart Hospital's Tasmanian Burns Unit

As outlined above, patients may opt out of having information recorded in either BRANZ or the Tasmanian Burns Unit database AND/OR not participate in digital photography or Telehealth.

Please contact the Nurse Practitioner for Burns by phone (03 6166 0096) if you do not wish to have this information recorded.

This project has been approved by the Tasmanian Health and Medical Human Research this Committee.

If you have any concerns of an ethical nature or complaints about the manner in which the projects is conducted you may contact the Executive Officer of the Human Research Ethics Committee (Tasmania) Network by phone (03 6226 7479) or email [email protected]

Please quote ethics reference number H10538