Wound care tips/tricks/tools, please share!

[baygrl11]

All you wound care nurses out there--what is your favorite tip/trick/tool that you use daily? A wound care nurse at my facility has one of those head lamps glued to her head, and I covered for her one day and used her little gadget. It was really helpful in seeing the wounds better because the lighting is horrible where we work. Anyhow, I was wondering what YOUR favorite wound care "thing" is.

[amoLucia]

Read something that a nurse used that I thought was a great idea. I guess a wound nurse could use it also. For better visualization, the nurse used a mirror on the bed for checking out heels when doing body checks. She could see UNDER the heels more easily without making the pt do contortions for her observations.

Only caveat I could see was to store the mirror safely after it was cleaned post use.

I give credit to that nurse (whomever she was). Not my original idea.

[mitral]

Great thread!! Let's keep the tips coming! I know I've found that the skin prep I use for colostomies also works very well under tagaderm for people who have sensitivities. Once I had a pt who didn't know she'd react, and when we took off her picc dressing she had several good sized blisters. Unfortunately our hospital had no alternatives, so after I cleaned the area I had to put the same covering back on. This time I used skin prep (and PC course avoided the blisters) and when her picc was removed her skin was perfectly intact!