Health Economics
Chronic wounds are a prevalent condition that significantly diminish patients’ quality of life. A novel wound care program that included a Wound Care Inter-Professional Team (IPT) and an AI-powered wound management solution was implemented to improve chronic wound care within a regional healthcare system in Ontario, who care for over 15,000 wound patients annually. The program was designed for high complexity, chronic wound patients with non-healing wounds that required specialized, inter-professional care. This program resulted in positive clinical, operational and financial outcomes for the healthcare system, while also receiving high satisfaction scores by clinicians, administrators and patients who were surveyed.
Methods:
The Wound Care IPT is comprised of a dedicated team of wound care experts from Central East Ontario including hospital physicians, nurse practitioners, wound resource care coordinators, community nurse wound champions from over 10 home health agencies, homeless shelters and primary care paramedics – all connected to each other and their patients through a digital wound care management solution. Referral criteria included chronic and complex wounds that were not progressing or required high frequency home visits.
A quality improvement methodology approach was used which included regular project management meetings, clinician and patient satisfaction surveys, and clinical and financial outcome reporting.
Results:
Over 359 patients received care from 32 clinicians across home health and hospital p</span>artners. Since the program begin, significant cost savings have been realized by the health system, including average billed nursing costs decreasing from $1,636 per patient/month to $597, and average usage costs of advanced wound care products decreasing from $896 per patient/month to $122. These savings have been achieved while maintaining high-quality care, such as a 7% reduction in ED visits, a 50% reduction in readmissions, a 25% reduction in time on service, and a 92% satisfaction score from 15 patients interviewed about their experience in the program. Patients’ and clinicians’ responses support the positive impact of the technology in facilitating patient-centred wound care and engagement in health care decisions. The positive experience with digital wound care is linked to easily tracking wounds and healing progress over time, supporting better clinical and financial outcomes, for patients with complex, hard-to-heal wounds.
Discussion:
Trademarked Items:
References: 1. Las Heras, K., Igartua, M., Santos-Vizcaino, E., & Hernandez, R. M. (2020). Chronic wounds: Current status, available strategies and emerging therapeutic solutions. Journal of Controlled Release, 328, 532–550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2020.09.039
2. Fraser, R. D. J., Parrott, W., Nurse, M., Spice, T., Scales, L. A., Mohammed, H. T., & Cassata, A. (2022). Supporting Patient-Centred Wound Care with a Digital Wound Evaluation Model: Exploration into Chronic Wounds and perception of use of technology in wound care. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.23946.54724
3. Barker, M., Perron, M., Parrott, W., & Fraser, R. D. J. (2021). Inter-professional Virtual Wound Care Impact in an Integrated Health Care System during COVID-19. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.34715.18728