Month: April 2015
Nanotech-enabled moisturizer speeds healing of diabetic skin wounds
Finding common ground: Surviving wound care communication
By Jennifer Oakley, BS, RN, WCC, DWC, OMS
The author describes how to overcome challenges to effective communication in the healthcare setting.
Accurate communication among healthcare professionals can spell the difference between patient safety and patient harm. Communication can be a challenge, especially when done electronically. With an e-mail or a text, you can’t hear the other person’s voice or see the body language, so it’s easy to misinterpret the words. (more…)
Read MorePalliative wound care: Part 2
This approach brings patient-centered care to life.
By Gail Rogers Hebert, MS, RN, CWCN, WCC, DWC, OMS, LNHA
Editor’s note: This article is the second in a two-part series on palliative wound care. For the first part, click here.
By preventing and relieving suffering, palliative care improves the quality of life for patients facing problems associated with life-threatening illness. This care approach emphasizes early identification, impeccable assessment, and treatment of pain and other issues—physical, psychosocial, and spiritual. (more…)
Read MoreIf pressure ulcers were apples: A fun inservice program
By Karen Culp, RN, WCC
I’m one of the nurses responsible for the pressure ulcer prevention education program at the 150-bed skilled nursing facility where I work. We try to keep education sessions simple, fun, and interactive. One day, our administrator asked us to develop a crossword puzzle and “minute to win it” education game that would be appropriate for all staff—registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, and staff from administration, the business office, scheduling, maintenance, dietary, and housekeeping. (more…)
Read MoreEvolution of the deep tissue injury or a declining pressure ulcer?
By Jeri Lundgren, BSN, RN, PHN, CWS, CWCN
A declining pressure ulcer decreases the quality of life for patients and places providers at risk for regulatory citations and litigation. But it’s important for clinicians to determine whether the first appearance of skin injury is truly a stage I or II pressure ulcer or if it’s a deep tissue injury (DTI), a unique staging category for a pressure ulcer. Otherwise, a clinician might think a pressure ulcer is getting worse instead of the change being the normal progression of a pressure ulcer that is presenting as a DTI. (more…)
Read MoreRole of rehab in wound care
By Bill Richlen, PT, WCC, DWC, and Denise Richlen, PT, WCC, DCCT
How many times have you heard someone say, “I didn’t know PTs did wound care”? Statements like this aren’t uncommon. The role of physical therapists (PTs), occupational therapists, and speech therapists in wound care is commonly misunderstood by and even a mystery to many clinicians. Sometimes the therapists themselves are confused about reimbursement or what their role on the wound care team can be. (more…)
Read MoreWhat exactly are “the rules”?
By Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC, CWCMS, DWC, OMS Editor-in-Chief
During a recent wound care presentation, an audience member jumped up to contradict the speaker. “That is incorrect,” she asserted. “The rules state….” When someone asked her what rules she was referring to, she replied, “The government’s rules.”
On the surface, that might seem like a straightforward answer. But when you stop to think about it, what government did she mean? Federal? State? Local? (more…)
Read MoreClinical Notes : Diabetes, medical honey, silver dressings, clostridium
Guidelines for optimal off-loading to prevent diabetic foot ulcers
“The management of diabetic foot ulcers through optimal off-loading,” published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association, presents consensus guidelines and states the “evidence is clear” that off-loading increases healing of diabetic foot ulcers.
The article calls for increased use of off-loading and notes that “current evidence favors the use of nonremovable casts or fixed ankle walking braces as optimum off-loading modalities.” The authors reviewed about 90 studies. (more…)
Read MoreClinician Resources: March-April 2015
Below are resources you may find helpful to your practice.
AHRQ’s Safety Program for Nursing Homes: On-Time Prevention
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has established “AHRQ’s Safety Program for Nursing Homes: On-Time Prevention,” designed to improve long-term care by turning daily documentation into useful information that enhances clinical care planning.
On-Time uses electronic medical records to develop weekly reports that identify residents at risk for common adverse events in nursing homes to help clinical staff intervene early. Facilitators help the team integrate these reports into clinical decision making to improve care planning.
For each adverse event, the website provides a description of the reports and suggested meetings and huddles where the reports may be used, the functional specifications for programming the reports, description of implementation tools, and a 2-day training curriculum for facilitators.
Sleep times guidelines
The National Sleep Foundation has issued new recommendations for appropriate sleep durations. Check below to see if your patients—and you—are getting enough sleep:
• newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours
• infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours
• toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours
• preschoolers (3-5 years): 10-13 hours
• school-age children (6-13 years): 9-11 hours
• teenagers (14-17 years): 8-10 hours
• younger adults (18-25 years): 7-9 hours
• adults (26-64 years): 7-9 hours
• older adults (65+ years): 7-8 hours.
Access “National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: Methodology and results summary” in Sleep Health.
Venous ulcer resources
The website for the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC) has several resources related to venous ulcers:
• AAWC Venous Ulcer Guideline 3.12
• AAWC Venous Ulcer Guideline Evidence 6.13
• AAWC Venous Ulcer Guideline Algorithm Presentation 8.13
• AAWC Venous Ulcer Guideline Checklist 7.13.
The resources are available at no cost.
Wound care app
The Johnson & Johnson Wound Care Resource™ App helps patients identify, track, and provide recommendations on wound care treatment.
The free app includes treatment videos and coupons to help patients save on wound care treatment supplies. The app is available for download on iTunes.
More from The Buzz Report: A wound care clinician’s best friend
By Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC, CWCMS, DWC, OMS
Keeping clinicians up to date on clinical knowledge is one of the main goals of the Wild On Wounds (WOW) conference,held each September in Las Vegas. Each year, I present the opening session of this conference, called “The Buzz Report,”which focuses on the latest-breaking wound care news—what’s new, what’s now, and what’s coming up. I discuss innovative new products, practice guidelines, resources, and tools from the last 12 months in skin, wound, and ostomy management. (more…)
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