Study First: Driving the Case for Improving Hospital Wound Care

In this acute care setting, the author’s Wound Team found that the silicone bordered foam wound dressings on formulary used to manage topical wounds had poor absorption and required frequent dressing changes. They translated their empirical clinical observations into measurable data and used these data as a baseline to quantify our quality improvement efforts. The results of this QIP demonstrated that the perceived increased cost for use of the intervention dressing was inaccurate based on the actual cost of the dressings utilized. Additionally, the significant impact of the improved performance of the intervention dressing over the formulary dressing was quantified.