06 Oct Wounds Can’t Wait
NEW SURVEY FINDS A 26 DAY WAIT TIME FOR A DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT
Experts agree that increase in severe infections, hospital admissions, and amputations are all predicted results from delayed preventative and emergent wound care during the COVID-19 pandemic 1. And chronic wounds have a real economic impact to individuals and the healthcare system. Even before the pandemic over 8 million Medicare beneficiaries were impacted by wounds and treatments at a cost $28.1 to $96.8 billion 2! According to a new survey by Merritt Hawkins, patients are waiting on average 26 days for a scheduled doctor’s appointment 3. This followed a trend of increasing wait times for appointments over the past two decades. Wounds have a serious and deadly impact on people when care is delayed or inaccessible.
WOUNDS CAN'T WAIT TO BE TREATED
Patients with wounds can’t wait 26 days for an appointment. In the traditional wound care system, many of our patients have waited too long to see a wound expert or they have not had regular access to proper wound care treatments. Mendota Health emerged out of the pandemic in a response to a healthcare system that did not have the capacity to treat the increasing number of people with chronic and non-healing wounds. Through a mobile advanced wound care clinic, Mendota Health is able to provide access to expert wound care at home, and quickly and efficiently deploy wound care interventions to reduce death, severe infections, amputations, and hospital admissions from chronic and non-healing wounds.
For some of you it might be shocking to know that frequently when new patients come to us, they have had severe wounds for months, years, and even a decade. The lack of access to wound care pre-pandemic because of transportation, cost, stable housing, or other factors has meant our patients have not received the proper care to heal their wounds and thus have not been able to fully live the life they want.
Healing is just the beginning
When our nurse practitioners heal a wound that a person has had for months or even years it is the start of a new beginning for that patient. When asked what they will do now that their wound is healed, patient’s will say “I get to play with my grandkids today”, “I get to shower on my own”, “I get to go back to visiting with my friends”. Healing a wound successfully is a great achievement for the individual and for the nurse practitioner because it allows for a new lease on life! Our work is not just about healing wounds, it is about working with our patients to achieve the life they want to live, the life they deserve to live.
wound clinics near me?
If you or your patients need access to wound care visit our Locations page to see if we are operating in your area. If we are, please contact us.
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Armstrong, David. “Managing the Surge: Delayed Chronic Wound Care during COVID-19.” AJMC, 21 Sept. 2021, https://www.ajmc.com/view/managing-the-surge-delayed-chronic-wound-care-during-covid-19.
- Sen, Chandan K. “Human Wounds and Its Burden: An Updated Compendium of Estimates.” Advances in Wound Care, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Publishers, 13 Feb. 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389759/.
- Hawkins, Merritt. 2022 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times and Medicare and … AMN Healthcare, 2022, https://www.merritthawkins.com/uploadedFiles/MerrittHawkins/Content/News_and_Insights/Articles/mha-2022-wait-time-survey.pdf.