Impact Story
Medical University of South Carolina Children's Burn Center
Treating Pediatric Burns through Telemedicine
The MUSC Children’s Burn Center developed a first-of-its-kind app to connect pediatric burn patients to expert nurses and doctors who can assist parents in caring for their child’s burn wound. This type of follow-up care used to require multiple trips to the burn clinic to ensure the wound was healing correctly. Instead, this telehealth technology is providing families with the peace of mind to assist with the care their child needs at home.
About the Organization
MUSC Children’s Health Burn Center is the only pediatric burn referral center in South Carolina and cares for hundreds of children each year in their hospital, emergency department and outpatient locations.
About the Grant
The development of this app expands the reach of the MUSC Children’s Health Burn Center across the state to safely treat burn wounds. This app saves parents taking time off work and traveling to see doctors to ensure burn wounds are healing correctly and connects pediatric burn patients to doctors from their own homes.
Why it was Funded
The Burn App demonstrates a commitment to innovation and increasing access to care. For the economically vulnerable, time and travel are valuable assets and this app allows families to contact the MUSC Burn Center without having to take time off work. The app enables parents to care for their children and saves money by decreasing travel, unnecessary transfers and health insurance expenses.
The MUSC Burn App eliminated the need for 232 clinic visits for burn follow-up care from 2016 – 2018. For those that used the app, time to heal was reduced by an estimated 2.7 days and a reduction of 2.37 clinic visits.
Project Results
From 2016 – 2018, 116 patients used the app and avoided 232 clinic visits, amounting to 696 travel hours and 34,800 miles. This app has expanded the geographic reach of children served by the MUSC Children’s Burn Center, now that expert burn care can be provided through the app.
Ongoing Support
This app will continue to be available through the support of regional burn centers and health care reimbursement.
