Medical-Related Skin Injury (MARSI)
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
June 13, 2016
If you practice wound care, here’s what you need to know in order to avoid Medical Adhesive Related Skin Injury – also known as MARSI. Here’s a quiz for all of you in wound care: how many medical adhesive injuries are reported each year in the United States? The answer is 1.5 million. That’s a […]
Pressure Injury (Ulcer) Staging: More Real-World Answers
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
April 15, 2016
More real-world wound care questions and answers relating to pressure injury staging, including slough, debridement and skin breakdown. Can’t get enough of pressure injury staging? Neither can we. That’s why we’re excited to present even more questions and answers about this topic, based on what wound clinicians experience out in the field (versus what we […]
Real World Pressure Injuries: Staging Can Be Tricky
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
March 29, 2016
This wound care Q&A answers five of the most common questions about pressure injury staging dilemmas (that you probably didn’t learn from textbooks). In the world of wound care, just as in real life, the phrase, “Expect the unexpected” couldn’t be more appropriate. Clinicians can do everything exactly by the book, only to find that […]
Moisture Associated Skin Damage: Know Your Type
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
March 4, 2016
Know how to correctly identify these four common types of Moisture Associated Skin Damage (MASD) for best wound care practices. It might sound reasonable to assume that Moisture Associated Skin Damage (MASD) is the result of, well … moisture. The fact is that it takes more than just moisture to cause MASD, which is the […]
Skin Lesions: Spots on Skin that Aren’t Bruises
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
February 18, 2016
If you’ve ever noticed bruise-like spots on your skin that aren’t bruises, they may be skin lesions. So what might look like a bruise at first glance could really be a suspected deep tissue injury, purpura . . . or something else. Do you know the difference? We break down what a bruise is, petechiae […]
Essential Steps for Skin Tear Prevention
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
February 11, 2016
Skin tears are a common condition for the patients we care for, which is why it’s so important for clinicians to know who is at risk, and what can be done to minimize them. Painful. Disfiguring. Traumatic. Skin tears are all of these things, plus they can lead to further complications and serious infections. Unfortunately, […]
Warm Wound Healing? It’s All About Foam Dressings
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
February 4, 2016
Keeping a wound warm is an important part of wound care treatment, and foam dressing does the trick because it effectively maintains optimum temperatures and promotes healing. For wound care clinicians – and anyone else who ever treats wounds – it’s important to know that moist wounds heal faster. However, moisture on any surface (including wounds) […]
Five Wound Care Myths That Need to Go Away
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
November 11, 2015
The field of wound care has come a long way. And with over 25,000 WCEI alumni across the country sharing their skills and knowledge, we’re thrilled to see many outdated notions and practices go by the wayside. Unfortunately, there are still some wound care myths out there that just refuse to die. Here are five […]
Will the Real Pressure Ulcer Please Stand Up?
By Keisha Smith, MA, CWCMS
October 28, 2015
How to know the difference between Incontinence Associated Dermatitis (IAD) and pressure injury. As wound care clinicians, we treat our patients to the best of our ability and heal wounds – that’s what we do. But unfortunately, even under the best of circumstances, facility-acquired pressure injuries happen. And we have to document them … because […]