Bring Your Soul To Work teaches audiences how to engage and empower their teams by providing opportunities for them to find a sense of calling and fulfillment in their everyday work. In today's workforce, purpose-driven work is highly desirable. However, how can we discover our “Why” or higher purpose? Having found our purpose, what can we do to honor it through a purposeful, human work experience? Get ready to be inspired by Ryan's meaningful keynote that helps align our what with our why by bringing our soul to work.

We all agree skin health is difficult to assess in persons with medium and dark skin tones and there are challenges in this area. What else can we do to decrease the disparities in skin health related to detection of damage among persons of color? Of course the answer is use of technology such as the SEM Scanner or thermography, but not all health care institutions will be able to access technology. So while we wait for technology we can also conduct better visual skin assessments by learning what skin discoloration and skin damage looks like across a spectrum of skin tones. We can better educate providers using data from diverse skin tones and importantly, we can ask for more information from those who live in diverse skin tones. This panel will present basic skin assessment parameters and then focus on best practices for skin assessment in medium and dark skin tones. A panel of WOC Nurses will discuss how skin damage appears in medium and dark skin tones with audience participation.

Supported by Hollister Incorporated

The WOCN’s web-based clinical decision support tool for peristomal skin assessment (PSAG) has been updated with more diverse reference photographs, more supportive evidence, and less manufacturer visibility. Attend this interactive session to become familiar with the new tool and leave knowing you can confidently refer your non-specialty colleagues or inexperienced WOC nurse colleagues to psag.wocn.org for support in helping ostomy patients with damage to peristomal skin.

Supported by 3M Health Care

In this session, irritant contact dermatitis due to urinary and fecal incontinence and its assessment and management will be discussed. Gaps in knowledge, issues, and practical tips related to assessment of irritant contact dermatitis due to urinary and fecal incontinence on dark skin will be highlighted. Assessment and management approaches will be applied in case studies.

Supported by Convatec

Convex pouching systems have been available for ostomy patients for decades! However, ambiguity remains over the use of convexity. Convexity characteristics (including tension location), clinical application, indications and use in the immediate postoperative period will be presented with case study application.

This session will describe the experiences and identities of gender diverse patients as relevant to the medical setting. This will create a context for nurses to have a trauma-informed approach to providing wound, ostomy and continence care to transgender, gender nonbinary, and gender diverse individuals, who often have negative experiences during medical interactions. This lecture will discuss patient-centered ways to address a patient using inclusive language regarding identity and anatomy that is affirming. Ways to perform a sensitive exam and provide WOC care will also be discussed as part of the approach to the patient.

This session will review the use of vasopressors in clinical practice with a focus on the role these agents play in pressure injury risk. A review of the evidence will be presented and the impact of pressure injury prevention strategies in this population will be discussed.

Nursing sensitive quality measures are important for wound, ostomy, and continence (WOC) nurses to use as they demonstrate the value of the care WOC nurses provide. Nursing has a responsibility to measure, evaluate and improve practice.

The Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Society (WOCN) has identified a set of measures for WOC nurses to use in practice to demonstrate the value of the care, both quality and costs, provided by WOC nurses that improve patient care and outcomes: The WOC Quality Measure Set. The WOCN WOC Quality Measure set includes measures focused on pressure injury and continence.

Clinical lab values provide objective assessment of a patient's status and have become an essential component of care in modern medicine. In the context of wound care, lab values provide important insight into the nutritional status of the patient. In addition to traditional "point in time" measurement of clinical status, the use of the electronic medical record to rapidly search lab values and demonstrate trends in labs over time has improved our ability to prognosticate a patient's clinical status. Lastly, clinical labs, including nutritional labs, may be affected by inflammation and the acute phase response, causing false normalization. Optimal interpretation requires lab interpretation in the context of ongoing medical issues and past surgical history. Optimal wound care can benefit from proactive assessment of nutritional labs with nuanced interpretation.