Keeping Healthy: Wound Care

Among everything hospitals and physicians treat - wounds might be one of the most vast categories in the medical field.  And if you think just putting some Neosporin and band aid on it is all that goes into the treatment of a wound - that's not exactly the case.  That's why the skin and wound treatment team at Little Falls Hospital, including Patty Seifried, has acquired a special camera and computer system on the cutting edge of medical technology.  It allows them to best treat wounds.  The team set up a mock wound to show us how it works.

"The camera can help us document the wound so we know what it looked like upon admission,  and then we can check the progress it's made through their whole hospital stay and get a picture of what it looks like at the end. We can use the camera to measure the wound."

They can determine all dimensions through the computer system - which allows the team to give recommendations to the doctor as to how best treat it.  They can send pictures of the wound to an offsite doctor, without having to send the patient.  Seifried says it also can speed up the healing process.

"One of the things we can do with the camera is we can go in, take the dressing off...clean the wound then take a quick picture, then put the dressing back on. The longer you have the dressing off that delays wound healing."

The camera has great definition and a computer system to match.  The hospital received the system through a community member's trust fund, and the team says they feel quite lucky to have it - and it's made a difference.  One of the best abilities it's given them, is being able to show their patients progress.

"Some of the patients for the first time they've seen this wound they've been dealing with for months and as you show them how it progresses they can see that, now they have something to deal with, it's not just a mystery to them."