Accessibility of Wound Data in Canada
While even healing wounds require significant health-care resources, ultimately the majority of the resources used are for wounds that are non-healing.1,2 Non-healing wounds, which originate from different etiologies such as arterial and venous insufficiency, pressure and diabetic foot complications, are a serious public health problem that have devastating consequences for patients and result in high costs to health-care systems … read more (PDF)
Chronic wounds are likely to have an increased bioburden, which in turn increases the risk of local infection. Indeed, infection is one of the most frequent complications of non-healing wounds, resulting in longer treatment times, increased risk of morbidity, greater resource use (of both dressings and nurse time) and, most importantly, a high personal cost to patients and their families (Cooper et al, 2014). While the ultimate aim is to treat the underlying wound, use of antimicrobial dressings is the cornerstone of the treatment of infected wounds. Most antimicrobial dressings work by killing the bacteria, and are indicated for use only when there are clear signs of increased bioburden and/or clinical signs of infections. As such, their use is assessed after 2 weeks, at which point it is advised that the clinician switches to another type of dressing if the wound is observed to be healing (Cooper et al, 2014) … read more