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The power of the positive

Wound Care Advisor

Being positive in a negative situation is not naïve. It’s leadership.

— Ralph S. Marston, Jr., author and

publisher of The Daily Motivator website

Clinicians may encounter many challenges and stressors in the workplace—long hours, rotating shifts, inadequate staffing, poor teamwork, and pressure to achieve higher performance levels in an emotionally and physically demanding field.

But hope exists. Positive psychology uses scientific understanding and interventions to help people achieve a more satisfactory life. Positive psychologists have shown that building positive emotions can change the way we approach and view our environment, helping us become healthier, happier, and more resilient and helping employees and teams become more productive and engaged. (more…)

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Medications and wound healing

Wound Care Advisor

Each issue, Apple Bites brings you a tool you can apply in your daily practice. Here are examples of medications that can affect wound healing.

Assessment and care planning for wound healing should include a thorough review of the individual’s current medications to identify those that may affect healing outcomes. Clinicians must then weigh the risks and benefits of continuing or discontinuing the medications. In some cases, the risk of discontinuing the medication outweighs the importance of wound healing, so the goal of the care plan should be adjusted to “maintain a wound” instead of “healing.” (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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Staying out of sticky situations: How to choose the right tape for your patient

Wound Care Advisor

By Ann-Marie Taroc, MSN, RN, CPN

Are you using the wrong kind of medical tape on your patients? Although we strive to provide the safest care possible, some nurses may not realize that medical tape used to secure tubes and dressings can cause harm. The harm may stem from using the wrong product or using a product incorrectly, which can cause adhesive failure or skin injury. (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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A collaborative approach to wound care and lymphedema therapy: Part 2

Wound Care Advisor

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By Erin Fazzari, MPT, CLT, CWS, DWC

Have you seen legs like these in your practice?

Before-After

These legs show lymphedema and chronic wounds before treatment (left image) and after treatment (right image) with complex decongestive therapy (CDT)—the gold standard of lymphedema care. The patient benefited from multidisciplinary collaboration between wound care and lymphedema therapists. (more…)

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Motivational interviewing: A collaborative path to change

Wound Care Advisor

By Sharon Morrison, MAT, RN

Michael had diabetes and a history of elevated blood glucose levels. A long-time drinker, he seemed to have no interest in giving up the habit. I met him while working as a diabetes nurse educator for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, traveling from shelter to shelter to help persons with diabetes set goals to improve their health.

If our meeting had taken place a decade earlier, I might have given Michael information about diabetes and talked with him about his alcohol use. I would have encouraged him to stop drinking by explaining the problems alcohol can cause for people with diabetes. (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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