Healing Better at Home with Quality Wound Management and Nutrition

Summary:

Chronic wound rates for older adults are rising, and chronic non-healing wounds can significantly increase healthcare costs as well as impact patient health outcomes and quality of life. This American Society on Aging Generations Now blog outlines opportunities to improve wound health outcomes through a mobile wound management model and its standardized protocols, including critical components like quality nutrition care.

Key Takeaways:

• Mobile wound management fosters a shorter healing time, with patients’ wounds healing on average nearly twice as fast.
• Mobile wound management is growing rapidly, driven by an aging population, increasing rates of chronic conditions, and care models focused on delivering quality patient care in the home.
• Nutrition is often overlooked in wound care, yet it is foundational to wound healing and remains a powerful tool for quality mobile wound care.

Related Questions & Answers

• How can mobile wound management benefit older adult patients and their families?
  For many older adults and people living with mobility challenges, leaving home for repeated wound clinic visits can be stressful, exhausting, or even unsafe. Providing care where patients feel most comfortable—at home—can reduce risks of infection and hospitalization, honor patient dignity and independence, reduce potential out-of-pocket costs, and help relieve caregiver burden.
• What is the mobile wound medicine model?
  The mobile wound medicine model specifically focuses on healing wounds, not just treating them. The model has five core components:
  
  1. Advanced treatment techniques based on an understanding of chronic, non-healing wounds and their root causes
  2. Comprehensive care plans personalized to reflect each individual patient’s medical history, wound type and progression, and underlying conditions that can impact healing
  3. Preventing downstream complications by identifying early signs of complications, managing risks, and intervening promptly to prevent the need for more costly and invasive treatments
  4. Patient education and support to empower patients and caregivers and ensure long-term success and higher quality of life
  5. Faster, more efficient healing supported by proprietary technology and onsite care that expedites the treatment process 
• How is nutrition foundational to the mobile wound medicine model?
  Nutrition is often overlooked in wound medicine, but without adequate protein, hydration, and key nutrients (including vitamin C, E, B12, calcium, and zinc) the body cannot repair tissue effectively. Older adults are especially vulnerable to malnutrition, which can slow healing and increase the risk of complications. In the mobile wound medicine model, nutrition status is assessed at the start of care and every 90 days. Importantly, providing care directly in the home supports clinicians’ ability to understand real-world dietary habits and barriers and then offer tailored guidance. This guidance can include recommending high-protein nutrition supplements and science-backed formulations containing critical nutrients (such as arginine, glutamine, HMB, collagen peptides and micronutrients). Referrals to registered dietitian nutritionists can also be made when needed.
• What are the opportunities for further innovation in mobile wound management? 
  The future of mobile wound management is being shaped by new research and developments that will make wound healing even more accessible, personalized, and efficient for patients in their homes. Opportunities include developments that: 
  
  1. Prioritize early identification and proactive wound prevention
  2. Strengthen clinical integration and communication across the care continuum
  3. Invest in evidence-based training and ongoing competency development
  4. Leverage innovative diagnostics and point-of-care tools and
  5. Support whole-person care by addressing barriers beyond the wound 

Disclosures:

• Natalie Kahle, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DAPWHc, CWHAP, is a family nurse practitioner, wound specialist, and a national executive director for clinical integration and education for Woundtech. 
• Desiree Lacandola, MSN, APRN, ANP-C, COCN, DAPWHc, is an adult nurse practitioner, wound specialist, and a national executive director of education and integration for Woundtech.