Features Overview

Consultation

Our team of wound care professionals & dermatology nurses can liaise with your coordinator to establish the appropriate pathway forward. This will include a wound care assessment, skin integrity assessment, general health observations & vital signs (blood pressure, blood glucose levels, pulse oximetry, neurovascular observations). These benchmark assessments include detailed digital imaging & if needed, wound swabs required for pathology.

The team of professionals to manage your wound healing journey include:

• Wound Care Clinical Nurse Consultant,

• Dermatology Nurse

• Your GP

• Podiatry

• Vascular Surgeon

• Dietitian

Consultation may involve assessment, determination of wound aetiology, goal setting, development of a management plan, supervision of treatment, review of progress and discharge planning. At this initial point of contact, we can spend more time in pre-consultation documentation review to identify what is already known about your needs and what questions you may have for follow up. This includes reviewing your records for current medical history, treatment and investigations you have had to date, and any wound photography.

You also have the choice to have a healthcare worker in the room with you especially, to assess clinical features such as wound odour, skin temperature and texture, pedal pulses and oedema.

Assessment & Treatment Plan

Assessing your wound needs requires a face to face session to comprehensively document, record & perform baseline observations to determine the healing strategy most appropriate. This allows to:

• Develop a referral or consultation request process that includes the information needed from the referring team, e.g. medical history, wound history, investigations. Follow up with the referring team if this information isn’t initially provided.

• Ask potentially sensitive questions of you or your healthcare worker to determine the impact on you of your wound e.g. the wound odour or socioeconomic barriers.

Your face to face assessment will be a physical documentation session where you maybe required to have your blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation levels & blood glucose levels done & if requested, a swab of your wound for pathology.

Mapping out a treatment strategy will be determined once all information has been collated & the Clinical Nurse Consultant has reviewed the results. Wound healing & appropriate dressings will be established also.

Once the plan has been received, wound healing treatment can begin.

Review

Ongoing reviews are conducted & reported back to the medical team & healthcare workers to provide current updates, progress or any changes that need to be flagged.

Reviews are critical for wound healing strategies & consistency amongst the team is vital. Your review may include the following:

• ongoing baseline observations

• medication updates or alterations

• wound swabs or pathology requests

• alterations of the dressing protocols

• alterations to the treatments being used

• discussion of ongoing home care & support

• mental health concerns regarding wound status

• pain review