Dubuque Times

In 2018, Chrissy Morgan transitioned from a career in the acute care sector to long-term care, and quickly experienced the stark difference in clinical resources around skin and wound care.

“In the hospital, we had our own wound leader in acute care. They would help us assess the wound, determine the types of products needed to heal it, how often we would need to change the dressing, and we depended on them a lot,” said Morgan, who is now the director of nursing at Rolling Hills Health & Rehab. “In post-acute care, it is much more hands on learning, and as a clinical leader, my frontline caregivers are leaning on me for guidance.”

Factors such as staff retention and lack of knowledge around skin management can make wound care at post-acute care facilities, like nursing homes, challenging. Many health systems across the country are looking at education as a strategic initiative to help current staff refocus their energy.

To help educate and empower frontline staff on complex skin health topics, the Medline Post-Acute Skin Health Solution team is now hosting free virtual boot camps. The virtual sessions are designed for novice to experienced clinicians in wound and skin care, and focus on essential topics to build knowledge and confidence in caring for skin, including:

• Assessment and documentation of wounds
• How to properly measure wounds
• Nutrition’s impact on wounds
• Pain management for wound care
• Patient and family education

The boot camp offerings are as follows:

Skin Health Boot Camp: Designed for beginner to intermediate clinicians with a focus on pressure injury staging, topical dressing selection, lower extremity ulcers, and factors affecting wound healing. The series includes three consecutive, half-day virtual seminars:

• September 13, 14, 15
• November 8, 9, 10

Back to Basics Boot Camp: Developed for clinicians new to caring for skin and wounds, the series covers everything from pressure injury staging to wound care best practices. This boot camp series includes a one hour session on a different topic every other month:

• June 14: MASD treatment and prevention
• August 16: Wound care assessment and documentation
• October 4: Understanding the importance of pressure injury staging
• December 6: Topic dressing selection

Skin Matters Boot Camp: Designed for nursing assistants, caregivers, educators and beginning nurses, this series focuses on the basics of prevention. The session is four hours long and offered on the following two dates.

• September 20
• November 3

Earlier this year, Morgan, along with her facility’s assistant director of nursing and their wound care nurse, piloted one of the boot camps.

“An essential part of staff empowerment is helping each employee understand their vital role in achieving high quality resident care outcomes. The Medline boot camp elevated the positive impact our wound care nurse can have within our organization. She walked away with fresh ideas for enhancing best practices around areas like nutrition and offloading. It is important to find easy to access resources that your team can access to drive new thinking around everyday care activities,” said Morgan.

Learn more about how Medline is helping healthcare providers enhance best practices in skin health

Original source can be found here.