Category:

Skin and Wound Care

Course Description

Rev up your skin and wound care with the latest products and approaches.

Get up-to-date on practice

  • Evidence-based therapies and skills for rapid wound healing
  • Crucial lab values for wound assessment and monitoring
  • Essential skin care and wound prevention techniques, including nutrition guidelines
  • The Joint Commission’s latest pressure ulcer protocol
  • HCPCS reimbursement codes

Select the right product for your patient

  • More than 80 skin care products – liquid skin protectants, moisture barriers and moisturizers, and topical antifungals and antimicrobials
  • More than 300 wound care products
  • More than 150 additional skin and wound care products – including compression and conforming bandages, elastic bandage rolls, gauze, tape, and wound cleansers and pouches

And more:

  • Body mass index
  • Wagner ulcer grade classification
  • Braden scale
  • Treatment algorithms
  • Ankle-brachial index
  • Selected references
  • Manufacturer resource guide with Web addresses

Learning Objectives

  1. Explain the anatomy of the skin and point out the two layers and various strata.
  2. Classify wounds, ulcers and burns by their characteristics.
  3. List 6 functions of the skin.
  4. Explain the three-phase wound healing process.
  5. Describe 3 types of wound repair.
  6. Identify local and systemic factors that impede wound healing.
  7. List 5 most common wound-healing complications.
  8. List 7 factors that you should include in assessing and documenting wounds.
  9. Describe 3 types of wound classification systems.
  10. Understand wound etiology based on cause, underlying medical conditions and treatment to date.
  11. Classify wounds by stages, thickness and color.
  12. Distinguish among arterial, diabetic and venous ulcers on the basis of predisposing factors,
  13. Demonstrate wound depth measuring technique.
  14. Explain wound and skin assessment technique.
  15. Define the goal in wound care.
  16. List 6 parameters that you would consider in selecting an ideal dressing.
  17. Demonstrate swab-culturing technique.
  18. List 4 common antiseptic solutions, their actions and special considerations in their application.
  19. Demonstrate irrigating with a piston syringe and catheter.
  20. Describe and distinguish between enzymatic and mechanical debridement.
  21. Demonstrate wound-cleaning technique.
  22. Demonstrate the technique for packing a wound and outline the procedure for wound pouching.
  23. Outline 6 guidelines to apply a new dressing.
  24. Identify 15 categories of patients who are at risk for pressure ulcers.
  25. Point out common pressure ulcer sites in various anatomic locations that are susceptible to pressure ulcer formation.
  26. Describe at least 3 commonly-used scales for pressure ulcer formation risk assessment.
  27. Guide through an algorithm to effectively assess, plan, intervene and evaluate wounds.
  28. Prescribe a turning and repositioning schedule for the patient.
  29. Provide 9 interventions to effectively manage a pressure ulcer.
  30. Compare 6 classes of support surfaces in managing pressure ulcers.
  31. Select appropriate support surfaces to match the patient’s needs.
  32. Explain advantages and disadvantages of support surfaces.
  33. List at least 12 categories under which wound care products are grouped.
  34. Select a wide assortment of wound care products in 12 categories, such as alginates, collagens, foams, hydrogels, etc.
  35. For each wound care product identify the manufacturer, and describe how it is supplied, its action, indications, contraindications, application and removal.

Course Contents

Part I – Wound Care and Prevention

  1. Skincare and wound prevention strategies
  2. Assessing and documenting chronic wounds
  3. Types of chronic wounds
  4. Laboratory values in chronic wound management
  5. Developing a skin and wound care formulary
  6. Tissue load management
  7. Wound care and the regulatory process

Part II – Skin and Wound Care Products

  • Skincare products
    • Overview
    • Antifungals and antimicrobials
    • Liquid skin protectants
    • Moisture barriers
    • Skin cleansers
    • Therapeutic moisturizers
  • Wound care products
    • DRESSING AND DEVICES
    • Overview
    • Alginates
    • Antimicrobials
    • Collagens
    • Composites
    • Contact layers
    • Foams
    • Hydrocolloids
    • Hydrogels
    • Specialty absorptives
    • Surgical supplies, miscellaneous
    • Transparent films
    • Wound fillers
    • Other products
    • DRUGS
    • Overview
    • Products

Part III – Additional Dressings and Products

  • Overview
  • Abdominal dressing holders and binders
  • Compression bandage systems
  • Conforming bandages
  • Elastic bandage rolls
  • Gauze, impregnated with water or normal saline, without adhesive
  • Gauze, nonimpregnated, with adhesive border
  • Gauze, nonimpregnated, without adhesive border
  • Tapes
  • Wound cleansers

Appendices

  1. Body mass index
  2. Wagner ulcer grade classification
  3. Braden scale
  4. Treatment algorithm for pressure ulcers
  5. Treatment algorithm for arterial ulcers
  6. Treatment algorithm for venous ulcers
  7. Treatment algorithm for diabetic ulcers
  8. Treatment algorithm for diabetic ulcer wound care
  9. Laboratory tests to rule out atypical causes of leg ulcers
  10. Ankle-brachial index use in patients with diabetes

Process Steps for Formulary Checklist

Clinical decision making for skin and wound management depends on the types of patients managed in your care settings, the skill sets of the clinicians making the decisions for those patients, and the products available in the facility to improve skin and wound care. Skin and wound care requires a process-driven management approach. Each process step has a specific goal to achieve successful wound healing over time:

  1. Perform a needs assessment.
    Goal: To accurately capture the types of skin and wound care needs in your facility
  2. Developed an operational formulary.
    Goal: To provide all tests and services needed for your skin and wound care patients
  3. Develop a skin and wound care product formulary.
    Goal: To provide the proper skin and wound care products to your patients
  4. Develop documentation pathways.
    Goal: To provide an accurate documentation platform to support direct patient care and reimbursement
  5. Develop educational and competency validation pathways.
    Goal: To support all staff education and competency activities for giving skin and wound care
  6. Identify levels of practicing professionals.
    Goal: To establish a multidisciplinary, comprehensive program to manage your complex skin and wound care patient population
  7. Develop patient-teaching pathways.
    Goal: To provide the proper patient-caregiver skin and wound care education across the continuum of care

Comments

“This is an excellent guide for a nurse in a hospital setting. An excellent source of information.” – L.P., LVN, CA

“I thoroughly enjoyed & appreciated this course. It met all of my expectations with sincere clarity. Thank you!” – D.G., RN, CA