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The evolution of wound care and the high stakes of wound treatment

Approximately 6.5 million Americans are affected by advanced non-healing wounds each year.

While Americans were sleeping or worrying about a million other things that are completely out of their control, the chronic wound disaster quickly snuck up on us all. Approximately 6.5 million Americans are affected by advanced non-healing wounds each year. Healthcare professionals already know how serious these wounds are for patients especially in diabetic, obese, PAD, and elderly patients. Unfortunately, the general public is not so informed.

What is wound care?
This is what typically happens. A friend, family member or yourself suddenly discovers a wound on the body that is not healing in a normal amount of time. Once this happens many patients, families and caregivers new to our industry always ask, what is wound care? They Google it, search WebMD, or ask friends on Facebook and Twitter. Let’s pause here for a moment … this is far too late to be first learning about wound care. The earlier someone educates themselves about wound healing, the better their healing outcomes will become.

An advanced wound is one that will not heal in a normal amount of time and requires the care of specialists in order to heal. Wound care is its own niche of healthcare, and many hospitals today have developed their own outpatient wound centers. Many of these wound centers partner with management companies, who are experts in wound healing.

Why is wound care so serious?
The stakes are incredibly high when it comes to advanced wounds, and our clinical teams are constantly fighting time. Fear and avoidance often lead patients to ignore a wound and not seek proper medical treatment. In the case of diabetic foot wounds, the patient may also be experiencing neuropathy or numbness and not realize that their is a problem right away.

The longer the patient waits, the worse things get. Wounds easily get infected and if left untreated can require amputation or partial amputations.

In wound healing an amputation is always something that we want to avoid at all costs. Amputations are just as deadly as cancer. Once a patient has a limb amputation, the 5-year mortality rate is 68 percent, only second to lung cancer at 86 percent.

Put simply, if a patient ignores a non-healing wound it can kill them. This is why patient care is so important in wound care.

Why I am passionate about wound care
I am not a doctor, a nurse, or someone on the clinical side of healing, yet over the past eight years I have developed a true passion for wound healing. I studied journalism and found wound care through the publishing world, editing a medical journal focused on wound centers. From there, I found the wound center management world, which completely sucked me in and made me a believer in the importance of healing these patients.

I have been fortunate enough to work with tremendous mentors and leaders, from Mike Comer and Nancy Zeller at Wound Care Advantage to Dr. Desmond Bell at the Save A Leg Save A Life Foundation. These people have built successful businesses with the core focus of helping people with non-healing wounds. They are changing how people think about healthcare daily. I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn from them and everyone that I have met that is dedicated to making a difference in this field.

Traditional Wound Care Management vs. Modern Wound Care
Traditional wound care management has changed greatly over the years. For decades most management companies took the approach of one size fits all for operating wound centers. It meant that hospitals all spent a fixed rate for all of the wound care services offered by the management company, whether they needed them or not. This has changed with modern wound care management, which allows hospital executives to pick and choose the tools and resources needed to run the wound center themselves. This approach is making wound centers more affordable for smaller rural hospitals, where healing by wound specialists is most needed.


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James Calder

James Calder is marketing director for two tech companies in Philadelphia. He was voted the number two voice in healthcare in 2015 by LinkedIn. He also volunteers his time as executive board member of the Save A Leg Save A Life Foundation (www.thesalsal.org). He blogs for MedCity News, Social Media Today, the Huffington Post, Healthworks Collective and LinkedIn and is the co-founder of TAP Social Media. He can be reached on Twitter @jimmycalder

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