Wound Care Education Institute Blog

Treating Pediatric Burns Takes Skills and Sensitivity

Knowledgeable wound care clinicians are needed not only for adults but for the pediatric population too. Burns are common injuries incurred by children. We spoke with two experts to learn more about this important area of wound care for pediatric burns.

Stats on Pediatric Burns

“Burns are a leading cause of death and disability for children worldwide,” said Tina Palmieri MD, FACS, FCCM, Assistant Chief of Burns at Shriners Hospital for Children Northern California and Burn Division Chief at the University of California, Davis.

In the U.S., the stats are staggering. “Nearly each week in 2018 in the U.S. alone, approximately six children aged 0-19 died, 139 were hospitalized, and 1,762 were taken to the emergency room due to fire and burn injuries,” said Palmieri.

According to the American Burn Association Fact Sheet, 24% of all burn injuries occur in children under the age of 15, said Jenna Leach MSN, RN, WCC, plastic surgery specialty nurse at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware.

Palmieri pointed out risk factors for pediatric fire and burn deaths are: Read the rest of this entry »

How Do You Treat a Malignant Wound? Let’s Look at the Options

Wounds can present in patients as a result of various etiologies. One cause of wounds not typically on most clinicians’ radars are wounds that result from primary tumors.

We spoke with Joni Brinker, MSN/MHA, RN, WCC, an Ohio-based consultant and clinical nurse educator with Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and speaker for WCEI’s Wild on Wounds (WOW) national conference, to gain insight on malignant wounds that can develop from primary tumors.

What Is a Malignant Wound?

“A malignant wound is a manifestation of malignant (cancerous) cells that have infiltrated through the skin,” said Brinker.

Other structures such as blood and lymphatic vessels also can be invaded by malignant cells and produce wounds, she said.

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The Best Wound Care Certification to Have — Comparing Options

If you’re currently working in wound care or contemplating moving into it as your new specialty, you may want to consider becoming certified.

Why? The skills of certified wound care clinicians are in great demand.

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WCEI to Become Relias Wound Care — New Name. Same Mission

As you know, specializing in wound care is all about staying current to ensure you’re practicing the absolute latest standards of care — you are dedicated to constantly improving patient outcomes.

You are tireless in your work, your daily sacrifices, and all you do to provide the best possible wound care to your patients.

At WCEI, we share your commitment. We have always made decisions with this in mind — doing everything we can to share the latest best practices with wound care specialists and make sure we’re delivering you the most current information for your practice. This is why we first partnered with Relias, our parent company, in 2018. We saw the opportunity to reach even more people.

And with Relias, we’ve been able to do just that. Over the past several years, we’ve touched more healthcare organizations, more clinicians, more bedside practitioners to improve wound and ostomy care, heal more patients, and mitigate risk.

This is why we couldn’t be more excited to tell you that what you currently know as the Wound Care Education Institute (WCEI) will become Relias Wound Care in 2022!

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Pediatric Patients Require Special Wound Care

Pediatric patients with chronic and acute wounds need caregivers who are well-versed in wounds and in young patients’ unique needs. We spoke with three pediatric wound care experts to learn more about the most common wounds seen in kids, their etiologies, treatments, and recommendations for making dressing changes less traumatic.

Acute Wounds Seen in Pediatric Patients

Pediatric patients can need treatment for a wide range of wounds. In fact, the list is quite extensive, according to experts.

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Maximizing At-Home Wound Care for Patients

Having worked in the home health industry for almost 10 years, I learned a lot about how to maximize my impact with wound care patients. I’ve also learned how to help the home health agency become financially efficient and still have good wound healing outcomes.

My goal is to share some general insights on how different therapies are an important part of at-home wound care plans for patients in the home health setting, as well as offer some suggestions on how to manage wound care in the most cost-efficient way.

Keep in mind that each state practice act may be different. In general, physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) can provide similar services in the treatment of wounds. However, they also bring unique differences.

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Unpacking the Fundamentals of Burn Wounds

As a wound care clinician, you may be called to work in a burn unit or be consulted on burn wounds. If that is not your normal work setting, it can be overwhelming.

Our purpose in this article is to address the fundamentals and provide a solid working knowledge of how to manage burn wounds.

Let’s start with terminology. The American Burn Association changed the classification of burns from the traditional first-, second-, third-, and fourth-degree burns to the following:

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A Look at the UT and Wagner Scale Diabetic Foot Ulcer Classification Systems

Given the fact that DFUs occur in approximately 15% of patients with diabetes and there are more than 34 million people in the U.S. with diabetes, using a relevant diabetic foot ulcer classification system for patients is essential.

There are several diabetic wound classification systems. But how do you choose which one to use?

This decision generally involves clinician preference along with the organization’s policy.

Two wound care specialists provide an overview of two systems for DFU classification: The Wagner Scale and the University of Texas (UT) Diabetic Wound Classification System.

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Let’s Walk Through the Stages of Wound Healing

When teaching, I often get the question “What’s my role in the different stages of wound healing?”

To address this common question, I thought a review of basic wound physiology and the clinicians’ role during each of the stages of wound healing (aka phases of wound healing) would be helpful.

We know that the four phases of wound healing are driven by a mixture of chemical stimuli (growth factors and cytokines). Any diminished or excessive levels of these different chemicals can have a negative impact on the wound healing process. The phases are continuous and overlap each other to some extent. However, they must occur in a particular sequence to result in a healed wound.

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Necrotic Tissue: How to Identify and Treat It

Living with necrotic tissue is challenging for patients and requires evidence-based treatments from skilled wound care clinicians to achieve improved patient outcomes. Let’s explore what it is, how to spot it, and where to go from there.

What Is Necrotic Tissue?

First, what is necrotic tissue and necrosis? The term necrosis stems from the Greek work nekros, which means death.

“Necrosis is a loose term, and it can appear in two ways – under a microscope and grossly viewed with the naked eye,” said Brian Gastman, MD, Surgical Director of Melanoma and High-Risk Skin Cancer Program at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland and Professor in the Department of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.

When tissue is necrotic, there is a loss of tissue integrity, he said. “The tissue becomes discolored, there is fluid and exudative material present, and it becomes fodder for bacterial colonization.”

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