| Clinicians rely, unknowingly, on substandard acute surgical wound care modalities resulting in unfortunate patient outcomes at a significant cost, physically, emotionally, and financially. This scholarly project's objective was to integrate a structured, customized database at one institution to increase health care providers' awareness of evidence- and experiential-based acute wound therapies for this vulnerable patient population. Although a literature review supported web-based methodology, no references were specific to acute wound management. Pre- and post-implementation surveys were distributed to the Trauma Department to determine baseline knowledge and efficacy of the website resource tool. Initially, less than 25% (N=111) were able to locate wound care information. Half provided suboptimal patient care due to the lack of wound care knowledge. Most (83%) did not know where to find associated costs. The post-survey found suboptimal patient care shifted from often and always to rarely (47% to 63%) while there was up to 39% ( p < .001) increased cost consideration. More (26%, p = .002) reported the ability to locate wound care information with an improvement in wound knowledge (49% to 66%, p = .080). These findings are indicative of a significant gap in clinicians' understanding of acute wound care, corroborating the importance of this project. Knowledge garnered from this website should foster increased competency in acute wound management and extrapolate to optimizing patient outcomes, promoting conformity of care, increasing provider/patient satisfaction, and reducing wound care spending. |
