Practice Innovations
Wound care professionals will continue to be in demand, as the population older than 65 years is projected to grow by 25% by 2060.1,2 Wound care clinicians usually have diverse training/experience/background, which can lead to inconsistent care and result in poor outcomes.3,4 To standardize and improve healthcare professionals' knowledge level, the Joint Commission recommends developing a competency program.5,6 However, consistently ensuring clinicians’ competency is difficult, given time and resource constraints. We aimed to create a solution to overcome obstacles in wound care competency development, management and documentation. Using the Design Thinking methodology7, the solution* was created as a module within a clinical/reimbursement decision support web-application** for wound care/hyperbaric clinicians: ● Managers/clinicians’ needs, and role-based competency areas in wound care were mapped ● Module was developed with robust programming language/library/framework ● Use cases were prioritized; workflows were designed ● Evidence-based competency templates were created ● User feedback was incorporated The module is a cloud-based, mobile-responsive solution that allows custom competencies or role-specific wound care competency templates to onboard/train staff and manage clinician’s competencies. ● Onboarding/orientation: provision of initial training and information while assessing competence of clinical staff relative to job responsibilities ● Competency management: strengthening of knowledge, skills and ability in wound care competence relevant to each role (e.g.medical assistant/nurse/nurse practitioner/ physician/etc), with documentation of preceptor feedback/oversight, pre- and post-assessment. ● Clinical internship for professional certification: provision of framework/documentation required for certification (e.g.of hyperbaric technologists). ● Remote training: Module assignment (e.g.debridement, compression) coupled with preceptor’s teleassistance. Discussion/conclusion: A solution to accelerate wound care competency development, management and documentation was created. Users’ reported benefits include care standardization, increased efficiency in employee onboarding/orientation, and ability to track competencies for employee development, licensure, certification and facility accreditation.
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Trademarked Items: Trademarked Items
* Competency Tool, Wound Reference, Inc., San Francisco, CA
** WoundReference Clinical Decision Support Web-App, Wound Reference, Inc., San Francisco,
References: 1. Sen, C. K. Human wound and its burden: updated 2020 compendium of estimates. Adv Wound Care (New Rochelle) 10, 281–292 (2021).
2. U.S. Census Bureau. Older People Projected to Outnumber Children. U.S. Census Bureau https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/cb18-41-population-projections.html (2018).
3. Williams, E. M. & Deering, S. Achieving competency in wound care: an innovative training module using the long-term care setting. Int. Wound J. 13, 829–832 (2016).
4. Corriveau, G., Couturier, Y. & Camden, C. Developing competencies of nurses in wound care: the impact of a new service delivery model including teleassistance. J. Contin. Educ. Nurs. 51, 547–555 (2020).
5. Mize, J. & Hamm, T. Quality of Care Requires Ongoing Competency Evaluations. Woundreference.com https://woundreference.com/blog?id=competency-assessments (2021).
6. The Joint Commission. About Our Standards | The Joint Commission. https://www.jointcommission.org/standards/about-our-standards/ (2021).
7. Ferreira, F. K., Song, E. H., Gomes, H., Garcia, E. B. & Ferreira, L. M. New mindset in scientific method in the health field: Design Thinking. Clinics 70, 770–772 (2015).
8. Kielo, E., Suhonen, R., Salminen, L. & Stolt, M. Competence areas for registered nurses and podiatrists in chronic wound care, and their role in wound care practice. J. Clin. Nurs. 28, 4021–4034 (2019).