Why Choose a Wound Center?
For many people, cuts or sores naturally heal within a short period of time. However, in some cases, wounds fail to heal properly on their own. When the body is unable to heal a wound on its own, wound care is essential to avoid serious long-term complications. A multidisciplinary wound healing center can provide the specialized treatment options and medical knowledge needed to support the body's healing process, limit health complications and speed recovery.
Our Approach to Healing Wounds
A specialized wound healing center employs skilled medical staff specialized in wound care treatment. These centers, like the Northwest Health wound care and hyperbaric centers, follow a multidisciplinary approach to aggressively treat non-healing wounds, supporting faster healing and better long-term outcomes.
Diagnostic Testing
Infections can lead to delayed wound healing and other serious complications like amputation. A comprehensive wound treatment center will provide every patient with a wound assessment to examine for signs of possible infection. This includes examining a wound for any redness, warmth, pain, odor or draining. Other diagnostic testing includes vascular testing, blood tests, X-rays and cultures.
Nutritional Evaluation
Good nutrition is an important part of the wound healing process. A comprehensive wound center assesses each patient's nutrition, exercise and lifestyle choices and work with a patient's primary care provider to create a nutrition plan that ensures the patient is getting the correct amounts of protein, vitamins and fluids needed for optimized wound healing.
Infection Control
The management and prevention of infection is necessary for patients with wounds. A comprehensive wound center will include a variety of methods in a patient's care plan for infection control like debridement, cleansing and dressings.
Debridement
Debridement is the removal of dead or infected tissue from wounds. Patients of a comprehensive wound center will receive debridement as needed, even weekly, to keep their wound from further infection and promote growth of new tissues. Oftentimes considered a cornerstone of chronic wound care, this important step has shown to be a key factor in impacting healing time and outcomes.
Specialized Dressings
A comprehensive wound treatment center will consider many factors, such as durability, adaptability and goals, prior to selecting the appropriate dressing choice for each patient's wound.
Pressure-Relieving Devices
Reducing the pressure or friction causing a wound is key to healing. Because of this, pressure-relieving devices are used to offload a wound, meaning that no weight or pressure is put on the area with a wound, oftentimes a foot or leg. There are many different pressure-relieving options, including specialty shoes, dressings, cushions, mattresses and casts.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy is the utilization of oxygen under pressure to enhance the body's natural ability to heal. The treatment causes an increase in plasma and tissue oxygen, which stimulated angiogenesis and fights infection in an effort to speed healing. While HBO is considered a primary treatment for a few conditions, in most cases it is an adjunctive therapy.
Patient Education
Patient education is an ongoing process that starts with the patient's first visit at a comprehensive wound treatment center and continues throughout the entire healing process. Patients are educated on common wound types and related conditions, along with wound prevention.
If you or a loved one has a wound, the team of experienced wound care specialists at the Northwest Health wound care and hyperbaric centers are here to help. Healing wounds is our specialty, and even the most difficult wounds that have not responded to other treatments may see significant improvement at the wound center.