Developing a burn-specific peri-operative checklist: Version zero, a starting point

Published Date: 04th May 2022

Publication Authors: Cappuyns L, Holme H, Mandal A, Gurusinghe D, Shokrollahi K

Winning poster presentation in the Care category at the BBA Annual Meeting, May 2022.

Full conference programme available here: https://www.britishburnassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BBA-Bristol-4-6.5.22-Full-Programme-.pdf

Introduction: The World Health Organization (WHO) surgical safety checklist is a widely applied tool in surgical practice aimed at identifying potential faults before they can culminate into harm to patients. Its use has led to decrease in peri-operative errors and adverse events and promoted an increase in teamwork and communication in surgery worldwide. However the generic WHO checklist does not take into account certain considerations unique to sub-groups of surgical patients like burns. Burn patients have complex peri-operative requirements including potential use of skin substitutes, specialist equipment, large volumes of blood products and a greater requirement for pre-operative optimisation. Therefore a modified burn-specific checklist may be of value.

Aim:

1. To adapt the generic WHO surgical safety checklist into a burn-specific surgical checklist.
2. To undertake a recruitment exercise to engage as many burns services as possible to develop the concept.

Methodology:

1. Initial dialogue between a small number of burns services to develop a proof-of-concept burn-specific checklist.
2. Present a ‘version zero’ burn specific theatre checklist.
3. Engage with more burns services with a view to using a modified Delphi methodology to establish a working group to develop a version 1 burn-specific theatre checklist.

Conclusion: The burn-specific theatre checklist would start the day before surgery and would potentially aid appropriate pre-operative optimisation of patients and streamline care. It has the potential to improve surgical safety, the efficiency of theatre utilisation and time management, reduce the incidence of cross-infection, as well as improve communication. We are actively seeking to recruit burn professionals from the full spectrum of the burn MDT to participate in a working group that would meet and develop this concept further. Please contact us if you would like to participate.

 

Cappuyns, L; Holme, H; McCrossan, S; Booth, S; Nicole Lee, Mandal, A; Gurusinghe, D; O'Boyle, C; Ralston, D; Anwar, M; Nugent, N; Dheansa, B; Shokrollahi,K. (2022). Developing a burn-specific peri-operative checklist: Version zero, a starting point. Conference poster from British Burns Association Annual Meeting, 4th-6th May 2022.

 

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