Here’s what a wound care team does. The list is short enough that it’s worth knowing in advance.
Your wound care team will examine and measure your wound, check the blood flow in the area around the wound, determine why it is not healing, and create a treatment plan.
The second and third of those are the ones people do not expect. A wound clinic is not only looking at the wound. It is looking for the reason the wound is still there, and circulation is one of the first places it looks. Many things can make a wound heal poorly, and most of them are about the person rather than the injury: diabetes, poor circulation due to damage to arteries or veins, nerve damage, bone infection, being inactive or immobile, a weak immune system, poor nutrition, excess alcohol use, smoking, and a foreign body such as a piece of wood or broken glass in the wound.
Here’s who is likely to be in the room. The team may include providers who oversee your care, nurses who clean and dress your wound and teach you how to care for it at home, and physical therapists who help with wound care and work with you to help you stay mobile. Your providers will also keep your primary care provider updated on your progress and treatment.
Treatment usually begins at the visit rather than after it. To treat your wound, your provider will clean the wound and apply a dressing. You may also have other types of treatment to help it heal.
The goals cover more than the wound in front of them: healing the wound, preventing it from getting worse or becoming infected, preventing limb loss, preventing new wounds from occurring or old wounds from coming back, and helping you stay mobile.
One thing worth bringing is the information the clinic is trying to piece together: what the wound has been through already, what dressings have been used, what medicines you take, and how long it has been there.