Offering Comprehensive Wound Management

Slow to heal or non-healing wounds such as, venous stasis ulcers, pressure necrosis, and decubitus ulcers, affect several million Americans every year. Sadly, this leads to patients with immeasurable pain, extreme discomfort, and increased morbidity.   If not dealt with in a comprehensive manner, these non-healing wounds often progress to complicated infections involving the bone - often necessitating amputation.   The traditional approach to care, one that is decentralized and difficult to manage, is often frustrating for both patients and health care professionals alike.

Under the leadership of Robert F. Brewer, MD, FACS, medical director of the program, and with intensive treatment and specialized care by a highly trained team of wound care specialists, there is new hope.  Patients can overcome the pain and devastation of non-healing wounds, avoid potential amputations, and return to a normal lifestyle.   That is why Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center developed The Wound Care and Hyperbaric Oxygen Center, a center where the entire focus is to identify and correct healing deficiencies responsible for problem wounds.

We offer:

1. A Coordinated Approach:
   By collaborating and coordinating care with the patient's primary physician, our wound care team concentrates on assessing the etiology of the problem wound and developing a treatment plan.  With this strategic approach, we can often reduce healing time, reduce the cost of treatment, prevent amputation, and improve quality of an individual's life.

2. Comprehensive Evaluation:
   We assess: diabetes control, presence of neuropathy, blood supply to the wound, tissue hypoxia, foot deformities, infections, wound size and characteristics, the need for wound growth factors, the need for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and the need for revascularization.

3. Specialized Diagnostics:
   These diagnostic tools include: magnetic resonance imaging, radionuclide imaging, computerized gait and foot pressure analysis, weight bearing radiography, and transcutaneous oximetry (TCOM).

4. Specialized Treatment Facilities:
   Besides the services offered by our wound care specialists, our program includes access to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This treatment modality is a means of delivering high doses of oxygen to the body. Therapy is performed by placing the patient in the hyperbaric chamber containing 100% oxygen.  Breathing pure, pressurized oxygen allows more oxygen to be carried through the bloodstream to injured tissues; thus stimulating the healing process.

5. Education and Prevention:
   Treating the complications associated with problem wounds is only a part of the care we provide.  We also focus on providing services that will achieve a positive outcome: education, proper nutrition, diabetic counseling, smoking cessation, participation with the Bon Secours Hampton Roads Mind/Body Medical Institute and coordination with other services.  Furthermore, in order to prevent reoccurrence, we develop a comprehensive discharge plan for each patient.

6. Frequent and Timely Updates:
   In order to achieve our primary goal - providing the best in wound care services - we know continuity of care is paramount. This vital element of care is best achieved when there is an on going dialog between the patient's primary physician and our wound care team. At DePaul, we believe that providing frequent and timely updates helps us to develop better partnering relationships with our patient's primary physician.   And... those relationships are just as important to improving our patient's health as the wound care we provide.

For more information give our team a call: 889-2300.