Bid from the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care.

The Association for the Advancement of Wound Care sets out its bid for the WUWHS 2026 Congress to be held in Chicago, Illinois, US.

IWII Wound Infection in Clinical Practice consensus document: 2022 update.

ABSTRACT: Wound infection is a major challenge for clinicians globally, with accurate and timely identification of wound infection being critical to achieving clinical and cost-effective management, and promotion of healing. This paper presents an overview of the development of the International Wound Infection Institute (IWII)'s 2022 Wound Infection in Clinical Practice consensus document. The updated document summarises current evidence and provides multidisciplinary healthcare providers with effective guidance and support on terminology, paradigms related to biofilm, identification of wound infection, wound cleansing, debridement and antimicrobial stewardship. Integral to the update is revision of wound infection management strategies which are incorporated within the IWII's Wound Infection Continuum (IWII-WIC) and management plan. The aim of the 2022 IWII consensus document update was to provide an accessible and useful clinical resource in at least six languages, incorporating the latest evidence and current best practice for wound infection and prevention. Dissemination techniques for the consensus are discussed and highlighted.

Novel Smart Sensor Platform for Monitoring Multiple Pressure Injury Risk Factors: A Feasibility Study in a Post-Acute Care Facility.

INTRODUCTION: Posture, temperature, and moisture have been identified as critical modifiable risk factors in pressure injury (PI) development. Microclimate is defined as temperature and humidity at the interface of the support surface and body. To our knowledge, no studies have used sensor technology to measure these parameters simultaneously in real time. Continuous monitoring of repositioning and microclimate provide real-time actionable insights to help deliver personalized care and measure the effectiveness of interventions. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of a smart surface platform to collect and document clinical data on monitoring patients' movement and microclimate simultaneously and to compare data generated to nursing observations in order to construct an algorithm that is expected to evolve over time: (1) comparing the blinded data from nurses interacting with the patients and the system; and (2) data being collected is validating an algorithm that is expected to become more accurate over time. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective, descriptive single-site trial was conducted at a tertiary care facility in a large urban centre in Canada. Patients identified at risk of PIs received standard of care while placed on the smart surface for timed intervals. Nurses' assessment data were collected at three hourly timepoints using a comprehensive tool developed for the study. Sensors monitored patients' interface pressure moisture and temperature every four seconds. A comparative statistical analysis was conducted between the two datasets retrospectively. RESULTS: The study included a total of 104 participants; mean age of 59 years (range 21-92, ± 19.15). Sensor monitoring hours (1,407) generated 1,101,780 frames of surface data. A total of 511 nursing assessments were recorded during the study period. Sensor-generated data correlated strongly with nurse-collected data at cross-sectional intervals. There was a high level of agreement between information collected from sensors and nursing assessments: 94.7% for moisture (p<0.05), and 87.1% for temperature (p<0.05). Nurse-recorded posture assessments were compared to the smart surface platform interface pressure visualizations to determine the device's posture detection, resulting in a 92% accordance (matching 552 out of 600 nurse postures), with a binomial test determining the posture results to be statistically significant (p<0.05) (CI 95%). In addition, moisture events were matched to nurse assessments with 94.7% in accordance, identifying 39 bladder incontinence and 93 non-urinary moisture events (125 total events captured out of 132). CONCLUSION: The technology's ability to capture PI risk factors supports nursing practice. Supplementary data generated has the potential to improve efficiency of professional caregiver workflow and patient outcomes by informing targeted microclimate management strategies and decreasing unnecessary interventions. The large volume of data collected will be used as a basis for artificial intelligence applications with the potential to inform other clinical decision-making areas.

An international consensus on device-related pressure ulcers: SECURE prevention.

Catherine Milne and colleagues present the findings of their review, ccna2@juno.com.

The hierarchy of evidence in advanced wound care: The social organization of limitations in knowledge.

In this article, we discuss how we used institutional ethnography (Institutional ethnography as practice, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD and 2006) to map out powerful ruling relations that organize nurses' wound care work. In recent years, the growing number of people living with wounds that heal slowly or not at all has presented substantial challenges for those managing the demands on Canada's publicly insured health-care system. In efforts to address this burden, Canadian health-care administrators and policy-makers rely on scientific evidence about how wounds heal and what treatments are most effective. Advanced wound care exemplifies the growing authorization of particular forms of evidence that change the ways in which nurses come to know about and conduct their work. The focus of this paper's nursing inquiry is a critique of registered nurses' wound work as it arises within the established uptake of scientific evidence.

One child, one appointment: how institutional discourses organize the work of parents and nurses in the provision of childhood vaccination for First Nations children.

To effectively support childhood vaccine programs for First Nations Peoples, Canada's largest population of Indigenous Peoples, it is essential to understand the context, processes, and structures organizing vaccine access and uptake. Rather than assuming that solutions lie in compliance with current regulations, our aim was to identify opportunities for innovation by exploring the work that nurses and parents must do to have children vaccinated. In partnership with a large First Nations community, we used an institutional ethnography approach that included observing vaccination clinic appointments, interviewing individuals involved in childhood vaccinations, and reviewing documented vaccination processes and regulations (texts). We found that the 'work' nurses engage in to deliver childhood vaccines is highly regulated by standardized texts that prioritize discourses of safety and efficiency. Within the setting of nursing practice in a First Nations community, these regulations do not always support the best interests of families. Nurses and parents are caught between the desire to vaccinate multiple children and the requirement to follow institutionally authorized processes. The success of the vaccination program, when measured solely by the number of children who follow the vaccine schedule, does not take into consideration the challenges nurses encounter in the clinic or the work parents do to get their children vaccinated. Exploring new ways of approaching the processes could lead to increased vaccination uptake and satisfaction for parents and nurses.

Predicting pressure ulcer risk.

The Braden scale is a widely used pressure risk assessment tool and it is, therefore, essential to ensure that the tool is reliable and valid. Several studies have questioned the predictive validity of the Braden scale (Nixon and McGough, 2001). Bergstrom et al (1998) used a quantitative research paradigm to evaluate the effectiveness of the Braden scale in predicting which patients who are at risk of developing pressure ulcers in three different clinical settings in the USA. The study aimed to determine at what point a pressure ulcer will develop, the critical cut-off point, and whether this cut-off point can be duplicated. The authors also hoped to establish optimum timing for risk assessments.