From the Editor: Leading The Pack

  A very Happy New Year to all of the Today’s Wound Clinic readers! We are very excited to launch into our third year of TWC and have 6 print issues and 6 online issues planned for this year. TWC has received your feedback, and it is clear that the journal is being shared from management, to the front office, the clinic and hospital administration as well. We will continue to strive for timely, useful and thought provoking articles to enhance the wound clinic practice at every level.

  This focus of this issue—infection control—is clearly a big topic within wound care because of the basic nature of our patient’s problems. As wound care clinicians, we must be the ones that “lead the pack” in terms of an understanding of prevention, reduction or ideally elimination of cross contamination, and the protection of the patient, ourselves and our families. Our editorial staff hope that the feature article will strike a chord with us all in terms of how we deal with infection/contamination prevention in our individual clinics. The lack of guidelines specific to outpatient wound care begs for our industry to step up, look at best practices and give us some evidence based recommendations on clinic protocols versus all of us out there just hoping that we are “doing the right thing”. Excellence in infection control practices needs to be hardwired into our day-to-day activities as a process that we do instinctively. Our infection control practices must be completed without thought. No one should have to remind us to gel/foam in and out of a room, or before we put on gloves, and we shouldn’t have to have signs in treatment rooms that say “ask me”. Indeed we want them to comment on how many gloves we use, or ask us how we have any “skin left” because we use the gel so often. Our patients deserve to have that safety net of security and the assurance that they are being protected.

  Certainly MRSA and other multi-drug resistant organisms get top billing when it comes to common infecting organisms and Harriet Jones, MD—an infectious disease physician who also is a full time wound care physician—has an article taking us back to basics in understanding this much feared bacteria. In addition, we will get an introduction to an advanced method of culturing that previously was considered to be available in research centers but now is available to all practicing clinicians.

  As we were finalizing this issue the devastating earthquake in Haiti occurred bringing horror and sadness to the entire world as we sat helplessly watching the events unfold. Many volunteers both medical and non-medical were dispatched to aid in the search and rescue as well as treating the many injuries sustained by the Haitian people. One such presence was the University of Miami, led first by Dr. John Mcdonald who has been volunteering in Haiti for many years and was one of the first to go down there after the earthquake. The University of Miami has set up a network to collect and warehouse supplies as well as working to send volunteer wound care providers down to render care. Dr. Robert Kirsner, who is the contact/liaison for the wound care effort said “the response from the different wound care organizations was rapid and had special thanks to Bill Ennis, President of the AAWC, Patricia Hebda, President of the WHS, and Phyllis Bonham, President of the WOCN.”

  As they continue with the plans, their goal is to set up a temporary hospital at the airport, with 300 beds for patients and 100 beds for the medical volunteers. Anyone interested in further information can contact Dr. Kirsner at rkirsner@med.miami.edu. Enjoy this issue, visit us online, and let us know how we can make Today’s Wound Clinic the “must-have” journal for those specializing in providing outpatient wound management.

  Dorothy.Weir@HCAhealthcare.com