Financial Aspects of Wound Care
Financial Aspects in Wound Care
Financial Aspects in Wound Care Wounds in nursing homes are extremely expensive. Wounds can affect the quality of life for a patient and the bottom line of a nursing home. In order to decrease costs and increase quality of life it is necessary to treat wounds early on with the most effective means possible. Included in this paper are two articles discussing wound care costs. The first is written by Diamond (2010) concerning benchmarks in wound care and the second is by Vu, T., Harris, A., Duncan, G., & Sussman, G., (2007) regarding the cost effectiveness of wound care. The first article can be summarized as nursing homes overusing outside sources as the primary means of wound care instead of taking the more direct hands on approach by using recommended wound care guidelines in house. The cost of using outside facilities and treatments is almost double to treatment within the nursing home (Diamond, 2010). This article contains excellent information. It points out the positives of maintaining wound care within the facility and the negatives of using outside sources. Although there were not specific cost data included into the article cost saving suggestions included: Avoidance of in house injuries that may cause further complications, for example, removing wheelchair pedals during transfers, quickly establishing a wound care program upon wound identification, managing associated risk factors such as: diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, venous insufficiency, incontinence, nutritional compromise and if outside assistance becomes necessary, develop a facility wound care formulary so that the clinical specialist can prescribe treatments that are available within the facility.
The second article which is actually a study can be recapitulated as chronic wound healing can be improved and cost effective with a standard treatment regimen and trained personnel versus random care and personnel without wound
Financial Aspects in Wound Care Wounds in nursing homes are extremely expensive. Wounds can affect the quality of life for a patient and the bottom line of a nursing home. In order to decrease costs and increase quality of life it is necessary to treat wounds early on with the most effective means possible. Included in this paper are two articles discussing wound care costs. The first is written by Diamond (2010) concerning benchmarks in wound care and the second is by Vu, T., Harris, A., Duncan, G., & Sussman, G., (2007) regarding the cost effectiveness of wound care. The first article can be summarized as nursing homes overusing outside sources as the primary means of wound care instead of taking the more direct hands on approach by using recommended wound care guidelines in house. The cost of using outside facilities and treatments is almost double to treatment within the nursing home (Diamond, 2010). This article contains excellent information. It points out the positives of maintaining wound care within the facility and the negatives of using outside sources. Although there were not specific cost data included into the article cost saving suggestions included: Avoidance of in house injuries that may cause further complications, for example, removing wheelchair pedals during transfers, quickly establishing a wound care program upon wound identification, managing associated risk factors such as: diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, venous insufficiency, incontinence, nutritional compromise and if outside assistance becomes necessary, develop a facility wound care formulary so that the clinical specialist can prescribe treatments that are available within the facility.
The second article which is actually a study can be recapitulated as chronic wound healing can be improved and cost effective with a standard treatment regimen and trained personnel versus random care and personnel without wound
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