Chronic wounds, such as pressure injuries, vascular ulcers, skin tears, and diabetic ulcers, continue to be a serious health concern in the United States. Millions of Americans are affected each year, with 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.
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 interprofessional 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 entering its 30th year of successfully providing this essential information and education to practitioners.
In 2017, 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 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 thought and content leader 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 papers for the journal's continuing education activities. These papers 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, and adopting clinical practice guidelines. Readers tell us that they use the content by integrating new procedures and techniques, and by translating the latest research findings and innovations to practice. From a systems-based practice prespective, our readers value working on multidisciplinary teams and learning about the reimbursement for services provided on behalf of their patients.
Throughout 2016, Advances in Skin & Wound Care published articles that addressed important issues regarding pressure injuries, such as "Risk Factors for Pressure Ulcers Including Suspected Deep Tissue Injury in Nursing Home Facility Residents: Analysis of National Minimum Data Set 3.0" and "A Multisite Quality Improvement Project to Standardize the Assessment of Pressure Ulcer Healing in Veterans with Spinal Cord Injuries/Disorders."
Other articles, such as "A Multimodality Imaging and Software System for Combining an Anatomical and Physiological Assessment of Skin and Underlying Tissue Conditions," discuss the usage of technology in wound care.
Searches of the current literature will also be done 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 will assist them in topic selection to ensure that the journal is meeting the educational needs of its readership.