Practice Management

Mary R Brennan, RN, MBA, CWON

Inquisitive nurses have questioned the status quo and challenged the current standards available at the time. They believed there was an improvement that could be made, and so these nurses began the process of validating their concerns or questions. Was this easy? Probably not, but their conviction to seek out a better method drove them to look, investigate, and validate their work. I would like to share a few stories of nurses who have changed our practice and hopefully inspire you to ask the question: Why are we doing this?

As the health care industry moves from volume-driven to value-based care, clinicians are looking for ways to improve care and outcomes while reducing costs. Data-driven practice management has emerged as a key strategy for cost-effective quality care. But the question remains: How can patient data and analytics be used to improve wound care across care settings? Additionally, how can artificial intelligence and machine learning affect outcomes, and how can these technologies help providers achieve even better results in the future?

Jobs in the field of medicine are notoriously demanding. However, many factors are converging to exacerbate this problem, and clinician burnout poses a large threat to the health care system in the United States. Unfortunately, this problem does not impact a single segment of specialists but is systemic at many health care facilities.

Electronic Medical Record (EMR): A digital version of the paper charts in the clinician’s office. An EMR contains the medical and treatment history of each patient in the practice.

By Hannah Fell, Digital Managing Editor

Education is such an important aspect of health care, and patients need to be able to understand instructions that correspond to his or her treatment plan. With this information in mind, how should clinicians educate their patients about wound care in a way that is appropriate to their reading level?

Kylie McMath, MSN, RN, CWOCN addresses this topic in her poster, “Health Literacy Disparities in Wound Care Patient Education” at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) Fall.

By Christine Miller DPM, PhD

The human body possesses an amazing ability to heal itself, if given the right nutrients to carry out the necessary biologic processes involved. The need for nutritional assessment and support is critical for both acute and chronic wound healing and prevents an impaired immune defense that results in infection. Dietary intake must meet the increased demands of the body for recovery from the break in skin integrity. Nutrition in general is often overlooked when assessing healing potential in a patient’s plan of care.

For the past two decades, I've had a deep interest in wound care, but my son's wound care experience in 2020 shifted my attention to a largely overlooked population. As a mother, as I prepare to face his third incarceration, I am an even stronger advocate for transforming families and the lives of those who have been incarcerated. I have recently become a Prison Fellowship Justice Ambassador. In my perspective, we must never lose sight of the fact that the prison population is a subset of the general population.

By Kara S. Couch, MS, CRNP, CWCN-AP

Hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (HAPUs) pose a challenge for acute and post-acute care environments and are listed as hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Other HACs include central line–associated blood stream infections (CLABSIs) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs). Although CLABSIs and CAUTIs have seen a decrease in prevalence over the past decade, the HAPU is the only HAC that has not. In my recent WoundSource webinar, I discussed the topic of building a pressure ulcer prevention program within hospitals. The webinar is still available for viewing on WoundSource.com.

By Lydia Corum RN MSN CWCN

How many wound care coordinators have walked into a patient's room to check on a wound before the patient is discharged only to find that the same dressing originally ordered for the wound is still in place, or there is even no dressing at all? The patient and the family members are wondering what is happening, and the wound care coordinator needs to explain. This happens to wound care nurse coordinators, wound care nurses, and clinical managers all the time. The common problem for those nurses who love wound care is that many others do not share that love. In this blog, I'll be taking a look at nursing leadership and how this can help bring nurses together to form a wound care team.

By the WoundSource Editors

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest health threats of the 21st century. The current number of deaths attributed to drug-resistant infections is 700,000, yet this figure is expected to grow more than 10-fold by 2050. Although the rapid administration of antibiotics to treat infections often reduces morbidity and saves the lives of many patients each year, it has also been shown that up to 40% of all antibiotics prescribed are either unnecessary or inappropriate, which contributes to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.