Kessler Burn Center Earns Top Ranks
On Tuesday May 24, UR Medicine’s Kessler Burn Center will celebrate its designation as one of only 65 burn centers in the country to be verified by the American Burn Association (ABA). It is the only verified center in the state outside of the New York metro area. The center will celebrate its success with administrators, faculty and staff across the UR Medical Center, as well as numerous community partners and former patients, at a 5 p.m. reception in the Saunders Research Building atrium.
The three-year verification is a mark of distinction that signifies the burn center’s ability to provide optimal care and resources to adult and pediatric burn patients from the time of injury through rehabilitation. It followed a rigorous review of the 25-bed center that included an application, pre-review questionnaire, and an in-depth on-site visit by members of the ABA verification committee and senior ABA members. A written report was then reviewed by the entire ABA verification committee and by the American College of Surgeons’ committee on trauma.
The ABA cited many strongpoints, including the vision and leadership of the center’s director Derek Bell, M.D., assistant professor of Surgery. Reviewers also acknowledged the center’s quality assurance program, and its mortality rate as among the lowest in the country. Additionally, the report noted a seamless level of communication across disciplines, excellence in nursing care, a low nurse-to-patient ratio, and a breadth of pediatric resources within Golisano Children’s Hospital, including a pediatric sedation service.
“This would not have been possible without the phenomenal support we received from Medical Center administration, and the contributions of providers across countless disciplines that are united in providing the best possible care to burn patients,” said Bell.
In New York State, the center joins William Randolph Hearst Burn Center within New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City as the only other ABA-verified facility. A major tertiary referral center, Kessler serves patients from the metropolitan Rochester area as well as 1.8 million people in the 17-county Finger Lakes Region, and portions of northern Pennsylvania. There were 329 total adult and pediatric admissions and 3,400 outpatient visits to the burn center during the 2014-15 reporting year—a volume that rose by 26 percent over the last three years—and the ABA noted the center’s ability to accommodate significant future increases.
The center’s work is carried out by a team of general and plastic surgeons, adult and pediatric intensivists, hospitalists, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, emergency physicians, social workers, nurses and nurse leaders, physical and occupational therapists, nutritionists, child life specialists, psychiatrists, information analysts, and chaplains.
