Latrobe stitches up wound care remotely

Wound management is one of the hidden, but important, aspects of healthcare. Complications in wound management can lead to re-hospitalisation, further surgery, and in the worse cases infection or even death.

The Challenge: Provide wound care services to people living in rural and remote areas.

The Approach: Nurses take digital images and case notes which are then provided to a wound care specialist for assessment and further advice.

The Outcomes: It’s early days, but wound care has been made available to increasing numbers of people living in rural and remote areas of Gippsland.

The Lessons Learned: Simple technology such as digital images and case notes can have a big impact on clinical outcomes when used in a focused manner.

The Upside for:

Clinicians: Clinicians and nurses in rural communities are able to get guidance and care plans for patients from urban specialists.

Patients: Have access to specialist resources they would not have had access to otherwise.

The Organisation: Latrobe is able to reach a greater number of people with higher quality care.


The Latrobe Wound Care’s story

The Latrobe Community Wound Care Project is designed to bring specialist wound care services to people living in remote and rural areas of Gippsland. These people are usually recovering from surgery, accident, or a chronic illness such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease. They would normally have had to travel significant distances in the past to visit a wound care specialist.

The Wound Care project turns that on its head, using technology to take images and case notes to the specialist in their office.

“This is a two year project and we have just finished the first year collecting baseline data,” said Nicole Steers, executive director, ambulatory care, at Latrobe Community Health Services.

According to Ms Steers, in its first year the nurses involved in the project performed 12,775 wound assessments on 824 clients presenting with 1,227 wounds. The patients were spread out over an area covering 42,538 kilometers.

When a nurse visits the patient, images of the wound are taken, along with clinical notes. Some nurses travel with a laptop, while others - depending on the health service involved - take manual notes and digital images which are entered into a computer when they return to base.

“The major outcome for us is that we have one wound specialist covering 42,000 square kilometers,” said Ms Steers. “She can give the clinicians in the towns guidance, as well as set up care plans, without needing to leave her office.”

“The upshot is reduced travel for her, as well as reduced travel for the patients,” Ms Steers said.

Given the project is one year into its two year tenure, statistics on improved wound healing times are not yet available, Ms Steers said. “It’s difficult to quantify at the moment,” she commented. “The first year was about collecting baseline data and now we are putting in place pathways to improve healing times.”

Having said that, the Victorian Department of Health was so impressed with the project’s initial outcomes that it elected to bankroll the entire second year.

“In our second year we are really looking at improved pathways to care,” Ms Steers said. “This means standardising care, standardising the products that are used in the care, and therefore reducing the overall cost of the care.”

The Wound Care Project recently received the 2011 Victorian Healthcare Association Award for the Mobile Wound Care Service. The Project is a collaboration between Latrobe, HSA Global, which provides the healthcare software, the Victorian Department of Health, Monash University’s Department of Rural and Indigenous Health, Fujitsu and 17 healthcare agencies across the Gippsland region.