Nursing students at Daemen College in Amherst will have access to wound care information. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley says the college has announced a new partnership.
"There are estimates of about 6.5 million chronic wounds in the U.S. About 2.5 million are estimated to have a pressure ulcer,” said Dr. Cheryl Nosek, chair of Daemen's Nursing Department.
Daemen nursing students will now have access to free educational information from the Why Wound Care initiative.
With an aging population and increase in those with diabetes and obesity, there is a high need for nurses who are experienced in wound care. The amount of chronic wounds is pointing to an epidemic.
"Our diabetic patients have poor peripheral circulation which contributes to poor wound healing. We are also a very obese society, which doesn't lend itself to good peripheral circulation and I think that we're just not a very health society in many ways, so it makes us very vulnerable to these kinds of things,” Nosek explained.
Nosek tells us "Why Wound Care" will provide nursing students with both basic and advanced learning modules through PowerPoints, videos and other information.
“There actually have been some studies done that have shown nursing students don't feel real confident in how to care properly for wounds or what dressings to select or what exactly they should be assessing and so we feel this is something that could really enhance our students knowledge of wound care and providing better care for their patients,” remarked Nosek.
Daemen is currently in the initially planning stages of how the Why Wound Care program will be woven into the curriculum.
“Wound care is something that is intended to be really provided by a team and we are hoping at some point to include – because we have so many health care programs at Daemen to include our physician assistants students, our physical therapy students, our athletic training students, so that we can certainly provide a broader range of expertise, not just specific general nursing,” Nosek said.