The last decades the survival rate of patients with severe burns has increased enormously. Consequently, the main aim of burn care has shifted from surviving and healing of the burns to quality of life after burns. Their quality of life is dependent of their ability to deal with the physical, emotional and social challenges in life after burns, and their ability to be in charge of their own life whenever possible. This requires a person-centered and outcome-based burn care. Outcome-based burn care means providing patients the treatment that best suits their situation and putting the outcomes they find relevant central in the evaluation of the treatment. Consequently, we need insight into the outcomes of burn care that are relevant to the patient. We need to know how to make outcome information accessible and tailored to patients in order to facilitate joint decision-making between patient and health care provider.
Our aim is to present this pragmatic step-by-step approach for VBHC implementation, developed and applied in the three burn centers in the Netherlands, together with a patient panel and to share our key experiences. To name a few. We created a Burn Outcome Registration together with health professionals and patients. We designed a dashboard with the individual outcome parameters. Another dashboard is being designed to present the outcome parameters on groups level. The whole burn team has been educated in joint decision-making.
The approach may inspire others and can be used as a template for implementing VBHC principles in burn care.