Perley Health's Quick Tips
6 Key Elements of an Effective Skin and Wound Care Program
The Impact on Perley Health
By introducing these six key elements in 2021, Perley Health sustainably achieved:
52% decrease in the average of worsening pressure injuries
56% decrease in the average of skin and wound infection rates
6 Key Elements Implemented by Perley Health:
1- Validate the Data
This will become your baseline data from which you will
measure the impact of your solutions.
- Wounds can be mistaken for pressure injuries
- Confirm etiologies of all wounds.
- Ensure the accuracy of this data
- Establish pressure injury definitions.
- Educate the care team on different wound etiologies.
- Ongoing assessments of wounds by trained wound care champions.
2- Standardize Assessments
- Be evidenced based
- Choose validated skin and wound assessment tools.
- Custom make your own evidence-informed assessments, if needed..
3- Standardize Treatment Scheduling
- Make scheduling tasks faster and clearer
- Choose one accessible location for scheduling treatments.
- Create editable text templates for wound care tasks.
- Synchronize scheduling frequencies of wound tasks with other routine schedules (i.e. Aligning wound dressing changes with bath times).
4- Streamline Product Supply
- Make point-of-care decisions easier, faster and safer
- Offer a limited, but curated, supply of skin and wound care products.
- Reduce wasted products
- Store product supply in designated, organized spaces.
- Plan a clear re-ordering process..
5- Avoid Contamination
- Target the biofilm
- Use a wound cleanser that contains surfactant.
- Remove vectors
- Do away with wound carts and bins, as they carry pathogens.
- Keep it sterile
- Use gauze in individual packages.
- Create a clean treatment surface
- Don't use towels or cloths under wound treatments. Switch to clean procedural pads instead.
6- Invest in Key Resources
- Enhance the quality of your Skin and Wound Care Program
- Hire or contact certified skin and wound care specialists.
- Purchase tools to make wound care assessment and treatment easier, faster and more effective.
- Contact the knowledge translation team at Perley Health: centreofexcellence@perleyhealth.ca
You also don't want to miss Perley Health's Field Notes: Building an Effective Skin and Wound Care Program! It expands further on on the quick tips to give even more in depth insight to creating your own effective Wound and Skin Care Program, please email: centreofexcellence@perleyhealth.ca
This work is part of the BPSO® designation program, funded by the Government of Ontario. For more information about the RNAO BPSO® Designation, please visit www.RNAO.ca.
Knowledge Translation
Perley Health's Centre of Excellence in Frailty-Informed Care ™ (CoE) has developed a Knowledge Translation Hub to facilitate the dissemination of our applied research projects, and to support the implementation of best practice into the context of long-term care (LTC) by collaborating with partners and other LTC homes. The last few years have highlighted the resiliency and innovation that already exists within the long-term care community. Research shows that LTC seeks out advice on care improvement to both regional and provincial colleagues. We want to help amplify these successes. LTC is a unique care context and therefore has specific barriers and facilitators to successfully implement best practice. Training and education and well-designed strategies are recommended as key interventions to support the adoption of innovative care ideas in the LTC context.
The KT Hub is part of the overall strategy of the Centre of Excellence in Frailty-Informed Care™.
To learn more about how the Centre of Excellence is transforming care for Seniors and Veterans, please visit our webpage at: www.PerleyHealth.ca/centreofexcellence.
