2026 Front-line Staff Outstanding Performance Award: ANMC Trauma Team's Burn Program

The Trauma Team at the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) is recognized with the 2026 Front-line Staff Outstanding Performance Award for establishing Alaska's first comprehensive burn program. Their coordinated, multidisciplinary initiative has fundamentally transformed the standard of care for burn patients statewide, enabling Alaskans to receive definitive care at home, closer to their families and support networks.

Historically, patients sustaining significant thermal injuries in Alaska faced a difficult reality: medical transport out of state, primarily to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. These long-distance transfers imposed substantial physical, emotional, and financial burdens on patients and their families, and adding systemic cost and logistical complexity to an already strained healthcare environment.

This gap represented more than an inconvenience; it was a health equity issue. For Alaska Native and rural communities already facing geographic barriers to care, out-of-state transfer compounded disparities and disrupted the community-based support networks critical to recovery.

Recognizing this unmet need, the ANMC Trauma Team undertook a systematic effort to build in-state burn care capability through a coordinated, multidisciplinary strategy spanning clinical excellence, workforce development, statewide education, and disaster preparedness. The team has transformed ANMC into a Level II Trauma Center with definitive burn capabilities, now managing burns up to 30% Total Body Surface Area (TBSA) locally, with a steady increase in both patient volume and acuity. Since its inception, the program has seen a significant decrease in out-of-state burn patient transfers, with no increase in mortality or length of stay.

Multidisciplinary Burn Workgroup

Established in September 2024, the Burn Workgroup meets monthly to address clinical care gaps and develop evidence-based burn policies, protocols, guidelines, and care plans, ensuring every patient receives standardized, highly reliable, top-tier treatment. In 2025, they launched a weekly Burn Rounds group to review active burn patient care plans and deliver burn-specific education, fostering a culture of continuous learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and quality improvement at the bedside. At the start of 2026, ANMC established a formal Burn Nurse Coordinator position, a critical investment ensuring continuity, accountability, and the sustained development of the program over the long term.

Workforce Development and Education

The team's commitment to workforce development extends from the hospital to the far reaches of the state:

• ANMC sponsored 15 multidisciplinary team members to attend the American Burn Association (ABA) annual conference in 2026, with a committed funding plan for the next three years. Current evidence, techniques, and innovations are systematically brought back and disseminated throughout the organization.

• Multiple team members completed Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS) instructor training, enabling ANMC to deliver ABLS education across Alaska. This is bringing life-saving burn care knowledge to healthcare providers in even the most remote communities.

• Bi-monthly Burn Echo educational seminars are offered across the hospital to build and maintain institutional burn care competency.

• Targeted burn education is provided to local EMS and first responder organizations, extending the program's impact beyond hospital walls to the front lines of emergency care.

• The ANMC Trauma Team hosted a comprehensive burn disaster and mass casualty exercise that brought together 60 multidisciplinary attendees from across Alaska to enhance statewide readiness for large-scale burn incidents.

The ANMC Trauma Team's Burn Workgroup exemplifies the very spirit of this award. By tackling a long-standing, systemic gap in Alaska's healthcare infrastructure through innovation, collaboration, high-reliability principles, and a deep commitment to health equity, this team has not merely improved a program. They have fundamentally changed the landscape of burn care in Alaska.