How to Tackle the Challenges of Wound Care With Technology

Long-term care facilities have been facing the challenge of skin and wound care for decades. Whether the result of a fall, pressure ulcer, or other causes, wounds are one of the most litigated care issues – second only to wrongful death.

Wound care is also very cost and resource intensive, with the average cost of individual resident care ranging from $20,900 to $151,700 per pressure ulcer. And it’s not only senior care providers who are feeling the pain.

Chronic wounds are one of the most pressing issues facing global health systems today, with 400M patients requiring treatment.

Chronic wounds are one of the most pressing issues facing global health systems today, with 400 million patients requiring treatment.

To successfully manage and treat wounds, providers need to implement a wound-care management solution that includes preventative measures, risk assessment, and technology that enables the care team to document the treatment and healing process over time. Tracking of surface-area changes over time have been the best way to determine if a wound is indeed healing, as a reduction in the wound area of 30% within two to four weeks indicates the efficacy of the treatment.

However, consistently and accurately documenting wound measurements can be difficult, unless your facility has a dedicated nurse who’s able to measure wounds the same way each time, at regular intervals. But in most instances, providers don’t have a wound-dedicated staff member – they have different charge nurses every week, resulting in variations in wound tracking and measurement.

Incorporating new technologies, such as PointClickCare’s Skin and Wound mobile app, enables providers to easily track wound care and streamline the process. It also offers a new way to measure and assess wounds consistently, while helping to increase collaborations with care team members, the resident, and the resident’s family.

The mobile app solves a workflow problem that complicates wound care; the non-standardized documentation and assessment of wound progression over time. The tool helps make progress measurement consistent between staff members from week to week, including the use of standardized terminology to describe that resident’s progress.

Follow the link to learn more about the importance of consistency in wound care, and how the Skin and Wound app helps.

Read More: How Technology Can Help Manage Skin and Wound Care