Enhancing Patient Access in Clinical Practice: A Comprehensive 3-Pronged Strategy

Hospital length of stay, access to care, and outpatient follow up are top priorities for hospitals around the country. Patients with advanced wounds impact all these metrics and can be complex moving through the healthcare system. A recent publication on the Wound Balance Concept highlights the importance of early recognition and intervention for wounds, rather than waiting up to 12 weeks to classify a wound as chronic. Delays in access to care, confusion of necessary appointments, limited knowledge of advanced wound care and a complex system are all barriers for patients with wounds to not just receive care but heal.

Three key areas of need were identified including: reducing the frequency of dressing changes and nurse visits, customizing management of referrals requiring negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT), and exploring a novel SAP dressing to provide an innovative approach to clinical practice, healing trajectories, and wound healing science.