Wound Vac Tips and MRSA sterile dressing

I work on a spinal cord injury florr, and the wound vac is my BEST FRIEND. A great tool is Tegaderm, its is much better at forming a creating a seal so I start with that to seal of the sponging. Also for the sponges, I use a razor blade to cut the circle in half, and then cut thin bridges to bring the track up to the belly. (Most of my wound are sacral areas.) It is advised and probably best that the patient does not ever lie on the suction cup. For more than one wound I also create a bridge. Once you get the hang of VACS they are great. I love doing them. I usually eye ball but it is safest to measure and makes the spnges slightly smaller. Overpacking a wound with sponge and making it to tight with the suction on is very dagerous and actually creates a turnicate in the wound. Ive seen alot of tissue damage from that. But like a said Tegaderm is great. I use that for reinforcement and the provided tougher stuff is better for lying the tracks. Hope this helps. Ask me any other questions, I really do love using these VACS. I've done hundreds

wound vacs are not indicated for infected wounds



I saw a nurse the other day use a wound vac and after she put the sponges inside the wound I notice that the final sponge she pressed it down into the wound and placed the plastic on top of that then apply the suction to it. To me it seemed she was applying too much pressure on the wound. Also I noticed she place the wound vac on the bed. She also had the wound vac going continuous at 125. How do you know to do it continuous and intermittent?

Go to http://www.kci1.com and check out their Clinical Guidelines document. That is KCI's "bible" on how to use the VAC. In general, they suggest that the first 48 hours of VAC therapy is continuous, and then switched to intermittent. However, there are a lot of situations when one might stay with continuous.

The wound vac are not positional, and can be on the floor or on a pole. If it is just sitting on the bed, obviously it can fall off and cause the hospital lots of money.

Cheers,
Oldiebutgoodie