Malignant fungating wounds (MFW) are present in 5-14% of advanced cancer patients in the US. They often occur within the last 6 months of life and are associated with symptoms that make the lives of cancer patients increasingly difficult, serving as a major source of emotional distress and poor quality of life. Associations between the cutaneous microbiome of these wounds and severity of symptoms have been made and will be applied to the selection of treatment options used with these wounds.

Most clinicians don’t enjoy every area of healthcare and ostomy management can be particularly perplexing at times. If ostomy management is not in your comfort zone - this workshop is for you! The discussion will help you understand several common ostomy surgeries and the hands-on-demonstrations will offer an opportunity to see how common ostomy products are used.

Supported by Smith+Nephew

Following admission to a facility, medical device related pressure injuries occur more quickly than other types of pressure injuries. This is especially significant to both the patient and caregiver population when considering the provision of care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first part of this symposium will discuss the implementation of a step-by-step system-wide pressure injury prevention program and the positive outcomes of a two-fold medical device related pressure injury prevention protocol by providing guidance to caregivers with personal protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 patients undergoing prone positioning to support lung function.

Simultaneously, managing wounds adds to the already overloaded healthcare system. Seventy percent of dressing changes are driven by schedules and unnecessary dressing changes consume valuable time that could be used for patient’s other clinical needs. The reality is that healthcare providers are asked to do more with less. The second part of the symposium will examine the T.I.M.E clinical decision support tool used as an evidenced-based, five-step approach that incorporates T.I.M.E principles into a framework that nurses and other professionals can follow within their procedural guidelines. Interactive real-life case studies will be discussed to help participants quickly identify the barriers to wound healing and gain confidence to make the right treatment choice.

The presenters will then review why ALLEVYN LIFE may be the ideal multi-layer foam dressing for use as part of a comprehensive pressure injury prevention plan and for the management of wound exudate.

Supported by Hollister Incorporated

Ostomy care changes and recent advances in Convexity barrier options are shaping new practice opportunities for WOC Nurses. Join us for an engaging conversation featuring an International panel of Ostomy care experts. The panel will discuss topics in ostomy care related to the use of soft convexity in clinical practice to improve patient outcomes.

Janet Stoia Davis, RN, ET, CWOCN, CFCN, CEP, will moderate the discussion as her fellow WOC Nurses share their insights, experiences and best practices when using Soft Convexity.

Supported by 3M Medical Solutions

Join Dot Weir as she discusses her experience utilizing negative pressure wound therapy and see how she manages her patients’ wounds through her case studies.

In this session the significance and process of proposing a change to the ICD 10 codes to include MASD conditions will be explained. Advocacy of the WOCN Society for its members, collaboration among society members, a policy consultant and an industry partners, and support from other professional societies will be highlighted.

Presented by Urgo Medical

In this session, Dr. Terry Treadwell will discuss the rising incidence of pressure injuries and the increased challenges presented in pressure injury patients that impact treatment and treatment options. Even with incidence on the rise, literature and guidelines have very little consensus on treatment modalities. With a focus on hypochlorous acid preserved wound cleansers (HAPWOC), we will review the mounting evidence around this technology and why achieving a balance and understanding the relationship between efficacy and cytotoxicity can make material change in pressure injury treatment. More broadly, we will explore the relationship of efficacy and cytotoxicity and how considering this can lead to more aggressive interventions that reduce the risk of wound degradation and the devastating impacts of infection.

Presented by Mölnlycke Health Care

This session is about a quality improvement project regarding cardiac surgical patients in a large academic institution. Nurses applied a foam sacral dressing preoperatively, and it stayed on for up to 5 days post-op in the intensive care and step down units. The project demonstrated a significant decrease in the incidence of postoperative sacral deep tissue injuries. Ms. Strauss will take us through her journey to get this QIP off the ground, and the success they found with the prophylactic dressing.

Presented by 3M Medical Solutions

Join us for an interactive presentation that explores the complications and best practices for the management of surgical drains and bone pins. The presentation will review the current literature and trends and introduce an innovative and versatile solution to provide antimicrobial protection with the 3M™ Tegaderm™ CHG Chlorhexidine Gluconate Gel Pad.

Presented by Hillrom

Join us to hear about how one medical institution utilized new incontinence detection technology to help change patient outcomes in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last December, Baystate Medical Center a 716-bed independent academic medical center in Springfield, Mass was looking for ways to improve patient care and increase caregiver effectiveness during an unprecedented time. They were worried about increased incidences of hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) knowing that in many cases, HAPIs are preceded by patients’ prolonged exposure to moisture caused by incontinence and the pandemic has further exacerbated this threat because:

1) COVID-19 patients typically have characteristics and conditions (old age, immobility, comorbidities and low skin integrity) that increase their vulnerability to pressure injuries
2) COVID-19 safety protocols limit how often nurses can check patients for incontinence

This lead them to implement the use of a technology that alerts caregivers to the presence of incontinence – the WatchCare® Incontinence Management system available on their Centrella® Smart+ MedSurg beds from Hillrom. Through implementing this technology, Baystate was able to have ‘eyes’ on patients behind closed doors knowing they’d be alerted to the earliest presence of moisture. This allowed them to address incontinence events sooner – reducing the patients exposure time to incontinence.

Learn more during the session about how the use of this technology changed outcomes, improved caregivers effectiveness and helped Baystate provide compassionate care in an otherwise trying time.