Health Outcome Worldwide BLOG

Chronic wounds increase home care (HC) costs, stressing an already overburdened system. More severe wounds are significantly more expensive to manage than less severe ones.

Measured outcomes can help assure successful implementation of evidence-based wound care programs by informing patients, professionals, and payors that a health care system is both efficient and effective.

In 2017, The Ottawa Hospital initiated a unique-in-Canada quality improvement initiative by opening a novel, multi-specialist limb-preservation clinic. We sought to describe the structure, processes, and initial outcomes of the clinic and evaluate whether it is achieving its mandate of providing high-quality wound clinical care, education, and research. We conducted a descriptive prospective cohort study alongside a nested study of 162 clinic patients requiring serial assessments.

Surgical site infections increase health care costs, morbidity, and mortality in 2% to 5% of surgical patients. Standardised post-surgical surveillance is rare in community settings, causing under-reporting and under-serving of the documented 60% of surgical site infections occurring following hospital discharge. This study evaluated feasibility and concordance (inter-rater reliability) of paired registered nurses using a web-based surveillance tool (how2trakSSI, based on validated guidelines) to detect surgical site infections for up to 30 days after surgery in a cohort of 101 patients referred to Calea Home Care Clinics in Toronto, Canada, March 2015 to July 2016.

Surgical site infections increase health care costs, morbidity, and mortality in 2% to 5% of surgical patients. Standardised post-surgical surveillance is rare in community settings, causing under-reporting and under-serving of the documented 60% of surgical site infections occurring following hospital discharge.

In August 2017 The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada (JOGC) published this article, exploring the feasibility of using an online database and mobile phone technology (our own how2trak Surgery application) as a post-discharge surveillance system among women undergoing a caesarean section in Canada. Read the full article here!