With a majority of wounds being managed exclusively by nurses, health providers who offer this essential service should be promoting membership of the New Zealand Wound Care Society to nurses on their staff and highlighting the society’s wound care conference on their calendar.
The 2023 Wound Care Society conference will be held in Dunedin on October 12-14. Its theme is “Improving wound healing through innovation, technology and collaboration”. (For more information about the conference, email [email protected] or go to https://nzwcs.org.nz/.)
With the advent of digital education, many nurses are preferring to attend to their education needs via Zoom, or using digital resources or not bothering at all. However face-to-face learning, such as at conferences, provides opportunities for networking and access to innovations.
The definition of a wound is a breach in the integrity of skin, resulting in the breakdown of its protective functions. The nature and causation of the wound affect the care it should receive.
Wounds may be classified as acute or chronic, based on the source or causal agent. Different kinds of wounds include surgical wounds, burns, traumatic wounds, pressure injuries, venous stasis ulcers, arterial ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers and other atypical chronic wounds.
Chronic wounds affect around 8.2 million people in the United States alone, with an estimated cost of between US$28 billion and US$31 billion.
There is little focus on wound management in the education of undergraduate nurses — teaching this skill is often seen as the domain of the clinical placement mentor or preceptor.
However, if the preceptor or mentor is not keeping up to date with their own wound care education, how are they able to teach nursing students? Do nurses believe that the old ways will still be relevant in a post-pandemic digital era?
Wound care continues to evolve — it is a creative field, demanding expertise and innovative knowledge, which must be shared and provided in a culturally appropriate way.
There continues to be innovation in wound care which could ultimately change practice. The Wound Care Society is pleased to be recognised for both demonstrating and supporting wound care innovators. With this in mind, we are thrilled to have many outstanding innovative speakers for this year’s conference.
The conference aims to demonstrate recent learning, new information and the possible future of wound care in Aotearoa New Zealand, with a focus on the physical, mental, digital and cultural wellbeing of individuals with wound-care needs.
The conference benefits health professionals working with people with skin and wound issues across the health spectrum. Wound Care Society conferences are renowned for being welcoming, informative, educational and fun.
Sasha Drennan,
Vice chair, New Zealand Wound Care Society,
Nurse educator primary health care, Te Whatu Ora —Waitematā District