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Clinician Resources: Nutrition, Treatment Algorithms, Pressure Ulcer Prevention

Wound Care Advisor

Check out these resources for your practice.

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Be a nutrition champion

One in three patients enters a hospital malnourished. Fight malnutrition by viewing six short videos from the Alliance to Advance Patient Nutrition, including “Rapidly Implement Nutrition Interventions” and “Recognize and Diagnose All Patients at Risk of Malnutrition.” The videos show how to collaborate with the care team to become champions of nutrition and help improve patient outcomes. Watch the videos online or download them for later viewing. (more…)

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Comprehensive skin assessment

Wound Care Advisor

By Nancy Morgan, RN, BSN, MBA, WOC, WCC, DWC, OMS

Each issue, Apple Bites brings you a tool you can apply in your daily practice. Here’s an overview of performing a comprehensive skin assessment.

In the healthcare setting, a comprehensive skin assessment is a process in which the entire skin of a patient is examined for abnormalities. It requires looking at and touching the skin from head to toe, with a particular emphasis on bony prominences and skin folds. Comprehensive skin assessment is repeated on a regular basis to determine whether changes in the skin’s condition have occurred. The goal of a skin assessment is to identify problem areas promptly for treatment and prevention. (more…)

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Case study: Early detection and treatment resolves a deep tissue injury

Wound Care Advisor
deep tissue injury

By Todd Zortman, RN, WCC, and James Malec, PhD

Pressure ulcers are a chronic healthcare burden for both patients and pro­viders. Over 2.5 million patients in the United States are affected annually by pressure ulcers, with nearly 60,000 of those cases directly resulting in death. From a provider’s perspective, the cost of individual care ranges anywhere from $500 to $70,000 per pressure ulcer, which translates to annual costs in the U.S. approaching $11 billion. (more…)

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Case study: Working under a time crunch in a short-stay facility

Wound Care Advisor
short stay facility

By Janet Wolfson, PT, CWS, CLT-LANA

After landing my dream job as the wound care coordinator at an inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF), I found myself trying to determine how much healing could be achieved for our more challenging patients, given the constraints of reimbursement and what can be done in the typical 10 to 14 days of a patient stay.

Here’s an example of how I worked with our team to help one of these challenging patients. (more…)

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Helping patients overcome ostomy challenges

Wound Care Advisor

By Beth Hoffmire Heideman, MSN, RN

No one wants an ostomy, but sometimes it’s required to save a patient’s life. As ostomy specialists, our role is to assess and intervene for patients with a stoma or an ostomy to enhance their quality of life. We play an active role in helping patients perform self-care for their ostomy and adjust to it psychologically, starting even before surgery. (more…)

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Clinical Notes : Diabetes, medical honey, silver dressings, clostridium

Wound Care Advisor

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…)

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Wound Exudate Types

Wound exudate types

March 25, 2017
Wound Care Advisor

BY: NANCY MORGAN, RN, BSN, MBA, WOCN, WCC, CWCMS, DWC What exactly is wound exudate? Also known as drainage, exudate is a liquid produced by the body in response to tissue damage. We want our patients’ wounds to be moist, but not overly moist. The t…

Pressure Injury

Ostomy

Knowing when to ask for help

December 5, 2016
Wound Care Advisor

As a wound care expert, you’re probably consulted for every eruption, scrape, and opening in a patient’s skin. Occasionally during a patient assessment, you may scratch your head and ask yourself, “What is this? I’ve never seen anything like it.” Mo…

Business Consult

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Medical gauze 101

Wound Care Advisor

By Nancy Morgan, RN, BSN, MBA, WOC, WCC, DWC, OMS

Each issue, Apple Bites brings you a tool you can apply in your daily practice.

Medical gauze, a bleached white cloth or fabric used in bandages, dressings, and surgical sponges, is the most widely used wound care dressing. Commonly known as “4×4s,” gauze is made from fibers of cotton, rayon, polyester, or a combination of these fibers. Surgical gauze must meet standards of purity, thread count, construction, and sterility according to the United States Pharmacopeia. (more…)

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What does it mean to participate in a wound care clinical trial?

Wound Care Advisor

By Susan Beard, RN, BS, CWOCN

Suppose you’re reading an article on a new product that states the product has been through a series of clinical trials before marketing. What does this mean? Who was involved? As a clinician, could you initiate or be involved in a clinical trial of a new product? Who are clinical trial subjects, and what’s it like for them to be involved in a clinical study?

A clinical trial starts as an idea. As clinicians, we often use our critical-thinking skills to imagine a product or method of practice we think could be created or improved on to better meet our patients’ needs. The idea begins to grow and a series of events begins. (more…)

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