Wound care at your facility

[poopylala]

Where you work, who takes care of wound care? I just did a clinical shift and the physical therapists did it as they didn't employ wound nurses.

Also, where you work, who drains a patient's abscess?

[wheeliesurfer]

I've seen PT do it in an outpatient setting. I believe that PTs are trained in at least basic wound care in school. After I had knee surgery previously it was PT that did the regular dressing changes. This facility treated patients who had venous stasis ulcers as a result of DM, and concurrent lymphedema. They would put them in a sterilized whirlpool bath, clean the wounds, put any prescribed ointments/wet-dry, etc on and then dress and or wrap them. Sometimes this process took the PT an extended period of time.

[RachRN11]

I'm a wound care nurse and work with a PT who specialized in wounds, used to work with a PTA who also did wound care until she switched jobs. They both had been doing wound care for 14+ years. Wound care shifts between PTs and RNs frequently and it's not that uncommon to have a PT/PTA do wound care. It can be within their scope of practice if they choose to specialize in it.

PTs are master/doctorate degrees so they know a lot about the science of the body.

You may find OTs who do lymphedema care as that's something they can specialize in as well.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

Depends on the wound. We have residents who change WV, but we are trained to do it if we have to. Sx wounds are changed my residents. We have a wound care team that does most of our complex changes, but we do amputations, pressure sores that do not have WV. We have lots of resources to help us.

[LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM]

Wow I really never knew until reading this thread that there were PTs who had anything to do with wound care whatsoever! Interesting. When I worked on a surgical floor that had a LOT of wound care patients, the floor nurses were the primary providers responsible for dressing changes, including wound vacs. Surgical teams would make clear what kind of dressings they wanted, and would sometimes do a dressing change when they made a.m. rounds (although often would just tear off the old dressing and then leave it for us to replace), or if we had a problem with a vac dressing. We had two wound care/ostomy nurse specialists for the whole hospital who would occasionally make rounds to help with very special dressings, but they actually helped more with difficult ostomies, as well as ordering specialty beds for patients who were more prone to pressure ulcers.

[loriangel14, RN]

Yes I have seen the PTs do wound care.

[saturnCWS]

Any PT who graduated from a CAPTE accredited school

in the United States is qualified to do wound care . Wound care is an integral part of the PT curriculum. The masters program in PT is now being replaced by DPT (doctor of physical therapy ). During PT school , the study of integumentary and MS system is so intensed requiring cadaver dissection during which one can best study the skin down to the skeletal level . Wound care is also heavily tested on the National Physical Therapy Licensure Exam . The APTA (American Physical Therapy Association ) and state practice acts recognize wound care as part of PT practice . A lot of hospitals,

SNF's , out patient and homehealth agencies use PT's as part of the wound care team . I have been a wound PT for decades and I have practiced in all health care delivery settings doing wound care . Most institution, though , require that a PT who practice wound care should be certified by a recognized wound certification agencies . I have been certified by the American Board of Wound Management with the designation as CWS(certified wound specialist ), same board and examination taken by MD's, Podiatirsts, PTs and nurses . It was a very difficult exam which consistently has a pass rate of 60%. This is not the certification where they will teach you in a week and test you at the end . You need to do wound very well in order to pass . It would be almost impossible to pass this test without years of wound care experience. Hope this will help educate the members of this forum regarding the advent of interdisciplinary era of wound care . Yes , it is no longer a discipline specific function as it was seen in the past .

[Kallie3006, ADN]

My former job had a wound/ostomy care team that would round on low Braden's, admits with wounds, after we would put the referral in, wound vacs ect. They would write wound care orders for bedside nurses to follow, change wound vacs if needed ect. We also had a dietician that followed pt care that was deemed "high risk" or needed support/guidence/teaching for anything from new dx diabetes, new rx coumadin, wounds/ surgical procedures with low lab counts. A pharmacist would get consulted on coumadin therapy, lovenox, vanco ect and they were amazing. I didn't realize until after I went to another job how much I appriciated and miss having those resources available. Where I am now, PT does wound vacs, Dr will write wound care orders if they want something specific, no dietician consult, pharmacy doesn't follow pt INR for coumadin dosing, or vanco, or whatever else. It's an adjustment that's for sure