Can't I just take you home with me? Opening an outpatient WOC clinic using an advanced practice nursing model

Can’t I just take you home with me?

Opening an outpatient WOC clinic using an advanced practice nursing model.

Goal: Provide wound/ostomy patients and their families with emotional, physiological, and social recovery resources in an outpatient setting, following an advanced practice nursing model. 

“What am I going to do when I get home? Can’t I just take you home with me?”

These are two of the most frequently asked questions I hear in my practice, a fact that probably surprises no one in the medical profession today. Given the current culture of shortened length of stays, managed care, physician shortages, and services cut backs, many of our patients with ostomies don’t receive education before surgery and only minimal education during their hospital stay. Further, they often have stomas sitting during transport to the OR suite and little to no follow-up care.

With no dedicated outpatient ostomy/ wound clinics in our geographic area, patients are left with little choice but to go to the ER or to their physician/surgeon for basic services (e.g.: adjustment of ostomy appliances for proper fit, general education, emotional support, ordering ostomy supplies, etc.). Retrospective chart reviews demonstrate that many patients are even being admitted to acute care hospitals so that the inpatient WOCN can see to their needs.

The outpatient wound/ostomy clinic my partner and I proposed will be the first in this area to serve patients using an advanced practice nursing model. Data suggest this type of clinic will give our patients not only better clinical outcomes and quality of life, but will also set the stage for monetary reimbursement in the outpatient setting.

We invite you to share our journey to establish this clinic, and as such, we would be pleased to present our outcomes.

Thank you for your time and consideration.