A retrospective audit of the treatment of wounds with moderate to high exudate levels

The inclusion criteria for this retrospective audit included patients (n=30) from the Worcestershire Health & Care NHS Trust that have already been treated and that required a wound dressing for the management of moderately to highly exuding wounds.

Results and discussion: The results of the “in use” evaluations showed a high use of foam secondary dressings with adjunct treatments to manage exudate. However, 65% of these treatments did not meet the clinical objectives related to exudate management.

The assessment of how effectively the patient’s treatment regimens managed exudate produced by the various wounds showed that exudate management was rated as “poor” or only “adequate” in the majority of cases. It is noteworthy that a proportion of patients suffered from peri-wound skin conditions, e.g. eczema, maceration and excoriation.

Over 95% of patients received peri-wound skin treatments to prevent/treat these conditions. As a consequence, these additional treatments add to the product costs and nursing time required. The use of appropriate wound dressings for the management of moderate to high levels of exudate would have prevented these severe skin conditions and likely significantly reduce treatment costs.

Conclusion: This paper shows that 65% of the patients included in this audit failed to meet the clinical objective of exudate management. Adverse event sequelae such as skin maceration/excoriation occurred and, consequently, direct and indirect costs associated with treating these patients increased. Using a more appropriate wound dressing such as superabsorbent polymer demonstrated significantly reduced costs when compared to these audit costs.

Jacky Stephen-Haynes
Professor in Wound healing, Birmingham City University and Consultant Nurse in Tissue Viability, Worcestershire, Health & Care Trust

Rosie Callaghan
Tissue Viability Nurse, Worecestershire Health & Care NHS Trust

Mark Rippon
Visiting Clinical Research Fellow, Huddersfield University, Medical Marketing

Sue Simm
Clinical Developement Manager, Hartmann UK

Stephen-haynes J et al (2018)A retrospective audit of the treatment of wounds with moderate to high exudate levels. Wounds UK 14 (5)