Accelerating Wound Care Competency Development, Management and Documentation

Background: Wound care professionals will continue to be in demand, as the population older than 65 years is projected to grow by 25% by 2060.1,2 Wound care clinicians usually have diverse training/experience/background, which can lead to inconsistent care and result in poor outcomes.3,4 To standardize and improve healthcare professionals' knowledge level, the Joint Commission recommends developing a competency program.5,6 However, consistently ensuring clinicians’ competency is difficult, given time and resource constraints. We aimed to create a solution to overcome obstacles in wound care competency development, management and documentation.

Method: Using the Design Thinking methodology7, the solution* was created as a module within a clinical/reimbursement decision support web-application** for wound care/hyperbaric clinicians: Managers/clinicians’ needs, and role-based competency areas in wound care were mappedModule was developed with robust programming language♥/library♦/framework♣Use cases were prioritized; workflows were designedEvidence-based competency templates were created within the moduleUser feedback was incorporated.

Results: The module is a cloud-based, mobile-responsive solution that allows programs to build their own competencies or customize role-specific wound care competency templates to onboard/train staff and manage clinician’s competencies. Use cases include: Onboarding/orientation: provision of initial training and information while assessing the competence of clinical staff relative to job responsibilities Competency management: strengthening of knowledge, skills and ability in wound care areas of competence relevant to each role (e.g.medical assistant/nurse/nurse practitioner/ physician/etc), with documentation of preceptor feedback/oversight, pre- and post-assessment. Clinical internship for professional certification: provision of framework/documentation of clinical internship required for certification (e.g.of hyperbaric technologists). Remote training: assignment of modules (e.g.debridement, compression) coupled with preceptor’s teleassistance.

Discussion/conclusion: A solution to accelerate wound care competency development, management and documentation was created. Users’ reported benefits include care standardization, increased efficiency in employee onboarding/orientation, and ability to track competencies for employee development, licensure, certification and facility accreditation.