Innovative Treatment for Chronic Wounds
| FACT:Chronic wounds occur in over 2% of the general population with direct and indirect medical treatment costs exceeding $2 billion. These numbers will increase over the next decade as our current population ages and the number of people affected by diabetes increases. |
The Center for Wound Healing
(TCFWH) assists its
affiliated hospitals and
private practices in
utilizing a best-practices model enhanced by nationally accepted wound care algorithms to significantly improve outcomes for patients with chronic non-healing wounds.
TCFWH assists
its affiliated hospitals and
private practices in employing comprehensive and flexible pathways recognizing the needs of individual patients and the marketplace, and the talents of individual physicians. Our methodology ensures that patients have access to subspecialty surgeons who utilize the latest in diagnostic testing, technology and treatments.
We assist
affiliated hospitals in
providing hyperbaric medicine and wound care services in an outpatient setting via successful wound care departments and satellite clinics. These departments and clinics typically offer the following:
• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
• Patient assessment, including cultures and biopsies
• Direct wound care, including debridement, non-contact casting, and unna boot application
• Growth factors
• Diabetic education
• Nutritional counseling
• Vascular procedures and studies
• Transcutaneous oxygen testing and mapping
• Bio-engineered skin grafts
• Pain management
• Infection control
• Inpatient wound management
Patient Wound Management Comparisons
| Factors |
TCFWH |
Control Group |
| Length of Stay (LOS) |
8.9 days* |
13.2 days |
| Lower Extremity Amputation (LEA) |
7% |
20% |
| Healing Rate |
76% in 12 weeks |
24% in 12 weeks
& 31% in 20 weeks |
| |
|
|
*LOS for uncomplicated Osteomyellitis for TCFWH patients was 5.9 days
As you can see,
implementing a HbOT service
through TCFWH greatly reduces hospital time, decreases amputation rates, and speeds the healing process. Hyperbaric medicine has proven to be cost-effective
and efficient in healing wounds and preventing both amputations and revised surgical procedures.
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