Wound Care

[goyo1010]

Hey, all.

Just wondering. When I observed at two acute care hospitals, I noticed that the physical therapists there no longer did any type of active wound care. This job was passed down to a separate wound care division, made up solely of nurses. The PT I shadowed said that they did use to perform active wound care, but the hospital set up a wound care unit and gave that job to the unit nurses.

I'm not sure if this was just at the two acute care hospitals I volunteered at or is this what is being seen at other settings nationwide? Any SPTs or PTs that work in acute care no longer doing any wound care or any PTs at all who have and opinions? I was wondering about this since we'll have a whole semester at school devoted to integumentary physical therapy.

I also found this article online on new FAQs concerning wound care.

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[jbizzle]

oh what, that sucks, I actually enjoyed wound care during observation................i'd like to know as well

 

[Akiramay]

I'm currently learning about wound care in my integumentary class right now. We have a lot of clinicians come in to help with labs who are certified wound specialists or do wound care where they work. They said it depends on where you go. Sometimes PT's do it, sometimes nurses do it, or a combo of both.

 

[TheOx777]

I could see wound care being split across the board between Nurses and PTs. I also hope that it is something that PTs don't lose a hold of moving forward. The more we can do, the better!

 

[CherokeeWahine]

In my observation hours at the local community hospital, wound care was still done by some physical therapists and some nurses, but debridement of wounds was done by a physician. The PT told me that in California, hospitals/clinics get better insurance reimbursement by having debridement done by a physician. Also, the PT told me that only physicians are allowed to debride live tissue. She said that PTs can only debride dead tissue.

Idk if this applies to other states, but I know that was the case at the hospital where I observed.