WoundFollowUp in Long Term Care Homes

The problem: In a nursing home or long-term care environment, the management of pressure ulcers and other slow-to-heal wounds is a preoccupation. It is time consuming and expensive.

The solution: WoundFollowUp Wound Image Program provides a way for nurses in long-term care facilities to keep on top of wound care for all residents and manage nursing time efficiently. It also provides features to help the facility track the costs of wound management.

Security and confidentiality: In a long-term care facility, WoundFollowUp manages all photos and notes locally - on the nurse's computer or on the facility's own local network. (It does not send anything over the Internet.) This increases security and maintains patient confidentiality.

Using WoundFollowUp, a long-term care nurse can:

• photograph pressure ulcers, other wounds, and dressings - using a digital camera
• load the photos into the patient's file -  the Images >> Upload from Camera feature allows quick and easy storage
• review the wounds of the residents in her care, to see which are improving and which not, and make a plan quietly in the office, where it's easy to look at earlier images and make comparisons
• make notes on each case in a Patient Notes tab to monitor healing and the stage of pressure ulcers (these entries can generate a Pressure Ulcer Report)
• use photos as the basis for discussion and planning with other medical colleagues

WoundFollowUp also provides:

• a report feature to track the progress of individual patients over the course of healing a pressure ulcer calculator to track the costs of management by stage of an ulcer. There is an example of this on the first patient (Patient zero, the Antelope) has a healed pressure ulcer report.