Implementing Skin Substitute Products in Your Practice

In this video, Jeffrey H. Hsu, MD, FACS, discusses the ideal practice setting for using skin substitute products and his pearls of wisdom for his colleagues in wound care.

This video is part 4 of a 4-part series on skin substitute products and their clinical applications. For additional content regarding skin substitute products, read the Advances article here.

Transcript

Dr. Hsu: My experience with these products has been that there's definitely benefit to these products, although these products also tend to be very expensive. And because they are so expensive, there is a lot of resistance to using these products in a lot of health care systems and insurance reimbursement companies and things like that.

What I would say is that in properly selected patients, the use of these products will actually save the organization large amounts of money that would otherwise go to treating chronic wounds that don't heal, multiple hospitalizations, amputations, rehabilitation—all of those things cost money.

They all have to do with wounds that won't heal, and they can go on for months and years. So, you really have to look at the big picture economically with regards to using these products. Although they may be expensive, they may actually save you money in the end.

The other thing I would say that I have learned in my experience is that in order to really be successful with these products, you have to have a system. First of all, as I mentioned before, you have to have proper selection and treatment of these patients before you even consider these products. They have to be evaluated and treated for a number of different issues.

You have to have a system—either a multidisciplinary clinic or some sort of group effort comprising wound care nurses and physicians who can provide patients with a reliable center that they can return to and have follow-up. These are not the kind of products that it’s like a one-time product and that's it. Most of these products require repeat applications and reevaluation along the way. So, unless you have a center where patients can return and be followed over the long term, I wouldn't recommend the use of these products unless that was in place.

The other thing I would say to my colleagues is that these products are, I think, ideally suited for what I would call advanced wound care centers—multidisciplinary clinics where they specialize and are dedicated to wound care and have the facilities and the personnel to provide long-term care for the patient.