Wound Care Research Posts

Archive for the ‘Wound Care Research’ Category

Why Wound Care Matters

Wednesday, July 27th, 2022

Wound care is essential in nearly every care setting, affecting patients across the care continuum. Understanding why wound care matters to both patients and caregivers alike is key, as wounds can prolong hospital stays, increase the risk of infection, and quickly raise costs for healthcare facilities.

A common issue requiring wound care is pressure injuries, which affect 1 to 3 million people per year in the U.S. alone. While pressure injuries occur in most care environments, they are particularly prevalent in both long-term and post-acute care environments — including hospice and home health settings — where patients remain sedentary for extensive periods of time. As the median age of the U.S. population continues to rise, an increasing number of people require wound care services, including treatment for pressure injuries.

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Making an Impact: Successful Wound Care Poster Presentations

Friday, May 6th, 2022

If you’re interested in submitting a poster presentation for the Wild on Wounds (WOW) conference, you’ll want to highlight your research findings succinctly through a combination of text and visuals.

“Poster presentations are a great way for clinicians to showcase their hard work on a project,” suggested Diana Ramirez-Ripp, HMCC, CWCMS, manager of live events for WCEI. “The content of the poster should interest your audience and provide a clear take-home message that attendees can grasp in a few moments.”

At the upcoming WOW conference, you’ll have the opportunity to share your research and accomplishments with other wound care professionals through poster abstracts. Posters are a standard at many conferences, and at WOW they include inspiring and thought-provoking presentations in various areas of wound care. These presentations give attendees the opportunity to gain new evidence-based knowledge in practice.

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Wound Healing Research: The Need for Grants Is Widespread

Wednesday, October 7th, 2020

If you’re a wound care clinician, you’re well-aware more research is needed on wound care and wound healing.

Locating evidence-based findings on wound healing from literature can be a difficult undertaking.

There is a great need for more research and evidence regarding wound healing not only because of its scarcity, but also because of the pervasiveness and cost of chronic wounds.

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Ileal Conduit Care and Nurses: A Review of Evidence-Based Practice

Thursday, July 16th, 2020

In 2019, researchers in China released an important study on interventions with ileal conduit patients after having undergone surgery for bladder cancer.

It has since proven to be a wonderful resource for all providers who work with ileal conduit patients.

The study began in 2014 with the establishment of a “dedicated team” of ostomy specialists who provided standardized postoperative care.

Its purpose was to undercover the effects of a more involved, systematized program of postoperative care for patients with ileal conduits who were discharged from the hospital.

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Study: Pressure Injuries at ICU Admission Predict Outcomes

Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020

Pressure injuries are a pervasive problem.

They present a real cost for patients physically, psychologically and monetarily. Plus, pressure injuries have an annual financial burden estimated at $11 billion per year in the U.S., especially in the ICU.

A study published in June 2019 by the journal Critical Care Nurse reports pressure injuries present at ICU admission are associated with longer hospital stays. They also have a modest association with higher in-hospital mortality rates.

“I was looking for an unambiguous clinical marker that could predict patient outcomes and mortality in ICU patients,” said William T. McGee, MD, MHA, associate professor of medicine and surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

He said different modeling tools try to predict outcomes and mortality in ICU patients, but they are not used routinely for all patients at all hospitals.

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Some Hospital-Acquired Pressure Injuries Are Unavoidable, Says Study

Tuesday, November 5th, 2019

Pressure injuries are the bane of wound care clinicians and other healthcare professionals who work diligently to provide the best patient care.

When patients develop hospital-acquired pressure injuries, financial penalties are placed on the organization by the federal government.

And high rates of hospital-acquired pressure injuries are perceived as a negative indicator on the quality of nursing care — the more hospital-acquired pressure injuries, the lower the quality of care is the consensus.

However, a new study revealed that sometimes even if everything is done right for a patient, a pressure injury can still form, and especially in critical care patients, said Joyce Pittman, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, FNP-BC, CWOCN, FAAN, a nurse practitioner and coordinator in the wound/ostomy department at Indiana University Health Academic Health Center in Indianapolis, and associate professor at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

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Study: Wound Care Certified Nurses Reduce Pressure Injury Rates

Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019

Just how much of an impact do wound care certified (WCC) nurses and other clinicians have on their patients? More than you might imagine.

By Carole Jakucs, MSN, RN, PHN

A formal study was conducted under the auspices of a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program known as the Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN). The findings of the study revealed a correlation with the presence of onsite WCC staff and a reduction in pressure injury rates for patients.

More than 2.5 million people in the U.S. are affected by pressure injuries, and more than 60,000 patients die each year as a direct result of the condition, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The HIIN study was funded by a grant program through the CMS using civil monetary penalty funds. These funds are used to support projects that benefit patients and residents of nursing homes with the goal of improving the quality of care they receive.

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FIRST Things First When Evaluating Wound Healing Research

Thursday, July 18th, 2019

You hear more and more about evidence-based wound care. But what does that mean and how can you tell when a study is a good one?

To evaluate the reliability of wound healing research, you can use the acronym FIRST to help. Here’s what each step means.

F — Funding

Who funded the study? Was the data published for the financial gain of a company?

You should compare these studies to other existing data to determine whether the results are true or manipulated. Studies funded by a manufacturer, or those in which the researchers and authors have a financial relationship with the manufacturer, tend to be biased.

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WCEI Instructor Finds His Niche in Physical Therapy Wound Care

Thursday, June 13th, 2019

Many alumni of the Wound Care Education Institute (WCEI) will tell you they enjoyed their training — so much so they view the WCEI staff and fellow students as another type of family.

By Carole Jakucs, MSN, RN, PHN

Part of what gives the institute that warm, welcoming feeling is the dedication to students and energetic style of teaching of one of its instructors: Bill Richlen, PT, WCC, DWC.

He is a clinical instructor with the Wound Care Education Institute (WCEI) and owner of Santa Claus, Ind.-based Infinitus LLC — a wound care instruction and consulting company.

Richlen began his extensive career as a licensed physical therapist 25 years ago and, almost simultaneously, found his work in physical therapy also involved caring for patients with a wide variety of wounds. He first discovered his attraction to wound care while still in his clinical practicum in physical therapy school.

“I did a six-week internship at a VA hospital,” Richlen said. “My first wound care patient was a paraplegic veteran with a stage 4 pressure injury. This was my first exposure to this type of wound. I had to help with his treatment in the whirlpool, submerging much of his entire body for his sacral wound. I soon realized they did not teach us how to care for wounds in PT school.”

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Case Studies Confirm Effectiveness of Honey for Wound Care

Thursday, March 21st, 2019

When durable medical equipment Manuka honey isn’t available to treat a chronic wound, can over-the-counter (OTC) honey products serve as an effective substitute? Poster presenters from the 2018 Wild On Wounds national conference looked for evidence in two case studies.

Despite rapid developments in new wound care technology, clinicians are turning to an ancient approach to speed healing and control bioburden: honey.

As early as 3,000 BC, Egyptians and other civilizations relied on honey as a topical wound treatment. With the discovery of antibiotics, however, honey quickly fell out of favor.

As antibiotic resistance drives the search for alternatives today, therapeutic honey enjoys renewed attention from researchers.

Is Manuka honey the only effective option?

Most of the studies on medicinal honey focus on durable medical equipment products, which typically contain honey extracted from the nectar of a Manuka tree.

Based on the evidence, medical-grade Manuka honey has gained esteem among wound care professionals for its increased antimicrobial action compared to other types of honey. Studies also suggest medical-grade Manuka honey contains compounds that jump-start stalled wounds, reduce odor and accelerate healing.

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