Wound Care
Patients who experience a delay in the body’s natural wound healing process may develop an ongoing medical problem or chronic wound. Covenant Health’s wound care team works to prevent wound formation and accelerate the healing process whenever possible.
The Covenant Wound Care Center opened in April 2007 and is an out-patient, hospital-based program to provide treatment for problem wounds. Patients can be referred for treatment by any physician, home health agency, hospital case manager or through self-referral. The center operates by appointment. A state-of-the-art facility, the Wound Care Center provides the most advanced therapies and the latest clinical modalities to treat problem wounds.
Need
Incidences of problem wounds are on the rise due largely to an aging population and an increase in diabetes. For example, approximately 18.5 million Americans have diabetes and, of that population, about 1.8 million will suffer from a problem wound.
Treatments
The Covenant Center for Wound Care & Hyperbaric Medicine employs the most technologically advanced wound care therapy. There are multiple diagnostic and treatment modalities depending on the situation. These include infectious disease management, physical therapy, occupational therapy, laboratory evaluation, nutritional management, pain management, diabetic education, nuclear medicine, radiology, skin grafts & debridement. Treatment options also include Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) which is prescribed for approximately 20 percent of non-healing wounds.
About HBOT
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is a procedure in which a patient breathes 100 percent oxygen while relaxing in a pressurized chamber. This delivers high concentrations of oxygen to the blood stream and the wound bed, which rapidly accelerates the healing process.
Staff
Medical Director – Dr. Han Hulen
Panel Physician – Patrick Hanford, D.O.
Panel Physician – Dr. A.J. Nguyen
Director – JC Walraven
Clinical Coordinator – Dana Bell