Comparison of Predictive Model of Care Requirements for Burn Patients With Operative Requirements Following Volcanic Burns

Abstract

Abstract On December 9, 2019, Whakaari/White Island volcano in New Zealand erupted with 47 people on the island. Thirty-one people survived long enough to enter the New Zealand National Burn network—13 were repatriated to Australia within 72 hours and 14 of the remaining 18 were treated at the National Burn Center at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland. Our department has previously published a model to calculate the total operative requirements for any given burn surface area for the first 4 weeks of burn treatment. From this model, we calculated the predicted surgical time and operative visit requirements for each patient and compared this to their actual requirements. Actual requirements were also recorded beyond 4 weeks until discharge. Results show that the average variance for operative minutes was significantly above predicted with both the full-thickness burn model (average variance 3.24) and the electrical burn model (average variance 2.65). There was a wide range in both cases (0.54–6.17 and 0.44–5.06, respectively). There was less variance from predicted values of operative visits required than operative minutes (mean: 1.58; range 0.9–3.02). Overall, the values for patients with smaller burns showed the greatest variability from predictions with regard to the total number of operative visits during the first 4 weeks of care. Additionally, patients with burn size greater than 50% TBSA required significant theater access beyond 4 weeks. Analysis of these findings will assist with future planning in both disaster and non-disaster settings in the provision of burn care.