Developing and Establishing Wound Dressing Team

Abstract

The existing literature has comprehensively examined the benefits of specialized wound care services and multidisciplinary team care for chronic wound patients. However, information on the development and integration of wound dressing teams for patients who do not require specialized wound care is scarce. An effective strategy is required to deliver high-quality care to wounded hospitalized patients. However, few hospitals have a specific team responsible for nonspecialist wound care. In the absence of a specialized unit, the responsibility for wound care is distributed, and dressings may be applied inconsistently. Therefore, the author sought to systematize and organize a hospital wound dressing team. The wound dressing team was established at Korea University Guro Hospital in 2017. In this chapter, the benefits of a wound dressing team are elucidated by reporting our experiences with the establishment of such a team. In the last 4 years, 180,872 cases were managed for wounds at the wound dressing team. Regarding the wound type, 80,297 (45.3%) were catheter-related, while 48,036 (27.1%), 26,056 (14.7%), and 20,739 (11.7%) had pressure ulcers, dirty wounds, and simple wounds, respectively. In the satisfaction survey, the patient, nurse, and physician groups exhibited high satisfaction scores. Dressing-related complications were reported in 136 (0.08%) cases. All complications were well-treated without serious sequelae. The wound dressing team can enhance satisfaction among patients and healthcare providers with low complications. These findings may provide a potential framework for establishing similar service models.