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Buzz Report: Latest trends, Part 1

Wound Care Advisor

We all lead busy lives, with demanding work schedules and home responsibilities that can thwart our best intentions. Although we know it’s our responsibility to stay abreast of changes in our field, we may feel overwhelmed when we try to make that happen.

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, 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. This article highlights the hottest topics from my 2015 Buzz Report. (more…)

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Top 10 outpatient reimbursement questions

Wound Care Advisor

 

At the 2015 Wild on Wounds conference, the interactive workshop “Are You Ready for an Outpatient Reimbursement Challenge?” featured a lively discussion among participants about 25 real-life reimbursement scenarios. Here are the top 10 questions the attendees asked, with the answers I provided.

Q Why is it necessary for qualified healthcare professionals (QHPs) such as physicians, podiatrists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and clinical nurse specialists to identify the place of service where they provide wound care services and to correctly state the place of service on their claim forms? (more…)

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Don’t go it alone

Wound Care Advisor

A fundamental rule of wound care is to treat the “whole” patient, not just the “hole” in the patient. To do this, we need to focus on a holistic

approach to healing, which means evaluating everything that’s going on with the patient—from nutrition, underlying diseases, and medications to activity level, social interactions, and even sleep patterns.

We know that as specialists, we’re expected to do all of these things. But in the real world, we can’t be specialists in all areas. That’s where the team concept comes in. In fact, the team approach is imperative for helping us heal our patients’ wounds and achieve our overall goal of improving patient outcomes. (more…)

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Clincal Notes: Analysis, Osteomyelitis, sickle cell, maggot

Wound Care Advisor

Value of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in wound care

“Systematic reviews and meta-analyses—literature-based recommendations for evaluating strengths, weaknesses, and clinical value,” in Ostomy Wound Management, discusses evidence-based practice and how systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) can help improve management of wound care patients.

The authors of the article explain evidence-based practice and provide useful definitions for key terms. They then provide a list of eight questions to use when evaluating SRs and practical tips such as how to search for SR and MA studies. The article finishes with a list of eight inter­ventions supported by the most evidence: hydro­colloidal dressings, honey, biosynthetic dressings, iodine complexes, silver compounds, hydrogels, foam dressings, and negative pressure wound therapy. (more…)

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Restorative nursing programs help prevent pressure ulcers

Wound Care Advisor

Immobility affects all our body systems, including our skin. According to the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, many contributing factors are associated with the formation of a pressure ulcer, with impaired mobility leading the list.

So what can clinicians do to prevent harm caused by immobility? One often-overlooked strategy is a restorative nursing program. (See About restorative nursing.)

Moving up the time line

Most patients who score poorly for mobility and/or activity impairments on the Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Ulcer Risk are referred to physical therapy, but too often a restorative nursing program (more…)

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Clinician Resources: Ulcer Prevention, CAUTI, Negative Bacteria

Wound Care Advisor

Start the New Year off right by checking out these resources.

Pressure ulcer prevention education

Access the following education resources from Wounds International:

The webinar “Real-world solutions for pressure ulcer prevention: Optimising the role of support surfaces” includes:

• an overview of the issue of pressure ulcers

• what to consider when choosing a support surface

• how to operationalize support surfaces in the clinical setting. (more…)

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Time to select a support surface

Wound Care Advisor

By Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC, CWCMS, DWC, OMS

Having the proper support surface for beds and wheelchairs is imperative in preventing pressure ulcers. “Pressure” ulcers are named that for a reason—pressure is the primary cause of interruption of blood flow to the tissue. Unfortunately, guidelines for support surface selection tend to make recommendations for the type of surface to use after a pressure ulcer has developed. Another factor that complicates matters is the development of deep-tissue injuries. These injuries start at the bone level, which means that often, tissue damage is extensive before we see visible signs and realize that the support surface we chose might not have been effective enough. (more…)

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Seeing healthcare from a new perspective

Wound Care Advisor

By: Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC, CWCMS, DWC, OMS

As healthcare clinicians, our world is full of tasks to be completed. Some are new, but many are tasks we repeat every day and thus have become routine—things we could almost do in our sleep.

But what’s routine for us may not be routine for our patients. For some patients, these routine tasks of ours may be their first encounter with a healthcare situation. (more…)

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Providing skin care for bariatric patients

Wound Care Advisor
Providing skin care for bariatric patients

By Gail R. Hebert, MS, RN CWCN, DWC, WCC, OMS

How would you react if you heard a 600-lb patient was being admitted to your unit? Some healthcare professionals would feel anxious—perhaps because they’ve heard bariatric patients are challenging to care for, or they feel unprepared to provide their care. (more…)

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Role of the ostomy specialist clinician in ileal pouch anal anastomosis surgery

Wound Care Advisor

By Leanne Richbourg, MSN, RN, APRN-BC, CWON-AP, CCCN, GCNS-BC

Restorative proctocolectomy with ileal pouch anal anastomosis (IPAA) is the gold standard for surgical treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). It’s also done to treat colon and rectal cancers, such as those caused by Lynch syndrome (LS). IPAA allows the patient to maintain fecal continence and evacuate stool from the anus after colon and rectum removal. A temporary ileo­stomy may be part of the overall process, but there’s no need for a permanent stoma. (See Understanding ulcerative colitis, FAP, and Lynch syndrome.) (more…)

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Is your therapy department on board with your wound care team?

Wound Care Advisor
therapy department wound care

By Cheryl Robillard, PT, WCC, CLT, DWC

Patients in your clinical practice who develop wounds should prompt a call for “all hands on deck” to manage the situation, but some personnel may be missing the boat. Physical therapists (PTs), occupational therapists (OTs), and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) should be on board your wound care ship so patients can receive care they need. But unfortunately, sometimes they aren’t. (more…)

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“Best of the Best” three-peat

Wound Care Advisor

By: Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC, CWCMS

What do the Los Angeles Lakers, Green Bay Packers, Montreal Canadiens, and New York Yankees have in common? All three have “three-peated”, meaning they have won three consecutive championships. This year, we at Wound Care Advisor, the official journal of the National Alliance of Wound Care and Ostomy (NAWCO), mark our own three-peat—our third annual “Best of the Best” issue. (more…)

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