Collaboration of the WOC Nurse and the Healthcare Team to Enhance Negative Pressure Wound Therapy in Level 1Trauma Center

Early identification of educational needs leads to practice innovation, correct product usage, and decreased wound healing time.

Collaboration in patient care extends to all facets of the healthcare team, including the WOC Nurse. According to the WOCN^® Society, the WOC Nurse is the clinical expert, educator and consultant for all care settings. To provide innovation in practice the WOC Nurse drives the team to utilize current best practice recommendations. The WOC Nurse also develops physician and nurse educational materials to decrease incidence of errors when implementing new products.

Practice innovation need was identified with the use of the system that provides both negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) and automated instillation of topical wound solution with dwell time (NPWTi-d). This combined NPWT system was introduced to a 500 Bed Academic Level 1 Trauma Center, Magnet Recognized Hospital. Prior to utilization of the product, the WOC Nurse recognized that, with a workforce of 483 MD’s/DO’s, 410 Residents and 1,425 Nurses, there was increased risk for user error due to sporadic usage of NPWTi‑d.

In a survey staff members indicated that, while product education and training were sufficient, they might benefit from a refresher of the key points of the instillation system’s operating functions, due to length of time between product usages. The WOC Nurse developed an educational tool for physicians, residents, and nurses to improve the accuracy and ease of utilization of the instillation feature. The tip sheet was instituted system-wide with supporting education. Accessible and reliable information at the provider’s fingertips supported staff usage of this advanced technology that instills topical wound solutions into the wound bed.

After initiation of the tip sheet and related training, reported outcomes of surgical wounds treated with NPWTi-d in our facility have demonstrated improvement in the wound bed with marked decrease in wound healing time.