During the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth became a crucial tool in healthcare as it facilitated service when limited travel and social distancing affected in-person hospital appointments.

The RBWH TeleBurns Service was implemented as an alternative model of care to help more burn survivors to receive world-class care without travelling. Amber Jones and her team evaluated the RBWH multidisciplinary burns telehealth service (MDT TeleBurns) by interviewing consumers and staff and reviewing the service provided.

The Professor Stuart Pegg Adult Burns Centre is the major referral centre for Queensland, Northern New South Wales, Northern Territory and the Pacific Islands. The centre is also an information centre for all matters regarding burns injuries and provides a 24-hour-a-day burns referral service.

More than 80% of RBWH burns patients live outside Brisbane’s north boundaries and have to travel to RBWH regularly for care for up to 2 years after the injury.

This is difficult, disruptive and expensive for patients and their families. It also costs the health system through the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme.

Improving TeleBurns will help even more patients across these areas to receive specialist care either closer to home or their nearest healthcare facility.

The team reviewed the MDT TeleBurns service data for the second half of 2022 by interviewing patients, specialist RBWH Burns clinicians and Queensland remote care providers/clinicians.

They identified opportunities to enhance the telehealth model of care, including improving the administration processes for telehealth appointments and streamlining communication between RBWH and remote sites during telehealth clinics.

These service enhancements will now be implemented in the second part of Amber Jones' project, leading to a service that better meets patients’ needs and increases the efficiency of the health system.