Mission

The American Burn Association is dedicated to improving the lives of everyone affected by burn injury through patient care, education, research and advocacy.

Who We Are

The American Burn Association and its members dedicate their efforts and resources to promoting and supporting burn-related research, education, care, rehabilitation, and prevention. The ABA has more than 3,500 members in the United States , Canada , Europe, Asia, and Latin America . Members include physicians, nurses, occupational and physical therapists, researchers, social workers, firefighters, and hospitals with burn centers. Our multidisciplinary membership enhances our ability to work toward common goals with other organizations on educational/prevention programs.

Activities

The ABA and its members are committed to improving the quality of care provided to burn patients. Our activities include stimulating research in the methods of treating burn injuries, fostering prevention efforts independently and in conjunction with other medical, scientific and safety groups, including major projects supported by FEMA. Other key activities include providing continuing education courses, annual scientific meetings, and scientific publications.

We created and administer courses in Advanced Burn Life Support, including the ABLS Now © web-based course, for physicians and other health care and first-responder personnel. We developed national guidelines to optimize burn care and, working with the American College of Surgeons, created a program to provide an operational assessment of individual burn centers and to verify that they comply with the national standards. We established a National Burn Repository and burn registry software, in conjunction with the College, known as National TRACS Burnware. The ABA maintains a Chicago office and Washington , DC representation. Current advocacy efforts include critical collaborative disaster preparedness projects with HHS, federal legislation for Medicare coverage of uninsured burn patients, with preferential reimbursement for verified burn centers and legislative initiatives to support NIH funding for clinical burn care research.