ABSTRACT
The coronavirus disease of 2019 pandemic has disrupted health care, with its far-reaching effects seeping into chronic disease evaluation and treatment. Our tertiary wound care center was specially designed to deliver the highest quality care to wounded patients. Before the pandemic, we were able to ensure rapid treatment by means of validated protocols delivered by a colocalized multidisciplinary team within the hospital setting. The pandemic has disrupted our model's framework, and we have worked to adapt our workflow without sacrificing quality of care. Using the modified Donabedian model of quality assessment, we present an analysis of prepandemic and intrapandemic characteristics of our center. In this way, we hope other providers can use this framework for identifying evolving problems within their practice so that quality care can continue to be delivered to all patients.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , Quality of Health Care , Outcome and Process Assessment, Health CareABSTRACT
Objective: To evaluate the role of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) on wound healing outcomes of patients with autoimmune disease at our tertiary wound care center. Approach: Retrospective review of patients presenting to our wound care center between 2014 and 2018 with both chronic wounds and a history of inflammatory disease. Patient demographics, comorbid conditions, and progression to complete wound healing were compared between those taking DMARDs or not at the time of wound onset. The study adheres to the STROBE statement. Results: Fifty-eight patients with a total of 296 wounds were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were taking at least one DMARD at wound onset in 217 (73.3%) of these wounds. The average number of DMARDs at wound onset was 1.5 (standard deviation 1.2). Two hundred ten wounds progressed to heal (70.9%), with a median time to healing of 229.5 days (interquartile range 71.0-490.0). Of the 210 wounds that healed, patients taking at least one DMARD had a significantly shorter time to healing relative to patients who were not on any DMARDs (median 190.5 days vs. 340.0 days, p = 0.0156). Innovation: Characterizing wound healing outcomes at a tertiary hospital with a dedicated wound care center and analyzing the role of DMARDs in wound healing progression. Conclusions: The median time to healing in the studied cohort was 229.5 days, which is much longer than the healing time for noninfected diabetic foot ulcers at our institution. These findings highlight the wound healing challenges posed by underlying autoimmune disease.10.
