Chronic wounds, such as pressure ulcers, vascular ulcers, and diabetic ulcers, continue to be a serious health concern in the United States. Millions of Americans are affected each year, with the total cost of their care reaching billions of dollars. Once a wound heals, which may take years for some patients, the chance of recurrence is high.
The management of patients with wounds can present a considerable challenge for several reasons: (1) the lack of a strong evidence and research base for many aspects of wound care, (2) the proliferation of products used to treat wounds, (3) the lack of taxonomy for describing and documenting wounds, and (4) the need for more education on skin and wound care in health professions' schools, including nursing, medical, physician assistant, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.
It is important, therefore, for skin and wound care practitioners to be able to turn to peer-reviewed, timely, credible, and authoritative sources of information on skin and wound management. Advances in Skin & Wound Care is now entering its 29th year of successfully providing this essential information and education to practitioners.
In 2016, Advances in Skin & Wound Care will again provide peer-reviewed continuing education articles for its readers on a monthly basis. Health information management research done by the journal's editorial staff indicates that busy wound care practitioners highly value access to earning continuing education credits through distance learning educational models that enable them to provide better care for the patients they serve. In response, our journal will address this critical need through practical educational-based articles that are thought provoking and applicable to wound care practice.
Richard "Sal" Salcido, MD, EdD, the journal's editor-in-chief, is an acknowledged authority on wound management, as are the journal's clinical editors, Elizabeth A. Ayello, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, ETN, CWON, MAPWCA, FAAN, and R. Gary Sibbald, BSc, MD, MEd, FRCPC(Med)(Derm), FACP, FAAD, MAPWCA, DSc(Hons). They will work with the journal's expert Editorial Advisory Board to select articles for the journal's continuing education activities. These articles will focus on synthesizing existing research and accepted practice standards into key recommendations for day-to-day management of patients with wounds.
In addition, the journal's editorial staff conducts surveys of the journal's readership to determine topics of interest for future issues. We use this research for our quality improvement program to focus on what our readers need. Our readers have expressed that the factors they deem critical to enhancing their wound care practice include improving quality of care, evaluating emerging products, adopting clinical practice guidelines, integrating new procedures and techniques, translating the latest research findings and innovations to practice, working on a multidisciplinary team, and reimbursement for services provided on behalf of their patients.
Throughout 2015, Advances in Skin & Wound Care published articles that addressed important issues regarding pressure ulcers, such as "The Role of Nutrition for Pressure Ulcer Management: National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, and Pan Pacific Pressure Injury Alliance White Paper" and "Secondary Analysis of Office of Inspector General's Pressure Ulcer Data: Incidence, Avoidability, and Level of Harm." Other articles, such as "Epidermal Micrografts Produced via an Automated and Minimally Invasive Tool Form at the Dermal/Epidermal Junction and Contain Proliferative Cells That Secrete Wound Healing Growth Factors," discuss the usage of technology in wound care.
Searches of the current literature will also be conducted on a frequent and regular basis. The results of the surveys and the literature searches will be evaluated by Drs Salcido, Ayello, and Sibbald and the Editorial Advisory Board to assist them in topic selection and to ensure that the journal is meeting the educational needs of its readership.