Summit Overlook Wound Care Center Receives Two Certifications

SUMMIT, N.J.—The Wound Care Center at Summit Overlook Hospital recently received a received two certifications.  They were the third hospital in New Jersey to be certified as a hyperbaric program by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.  They were also the first hospital in NJ to be certified in wound care by the Joint Commission.

"It was very important to me that, because we were a brand-new hyperbaric program, we knew we had the stamp of approval from the organization that provides the national standards for hyperbaric therapy," said Denise Malinowski, RN, BSN, CWCA, nurse manager at the Wound Care Center.  "I personally wanted the confidence that we were doing a great job, that we were providing quality care, and that we were practicing safely.  We worked over two years to make sure we were following all the standards and that everything we did in the program was at the highest level with no compromise.  So we just finished the certification review, and received certification with no recommendations."

The Wound Care Center uses hyperbaric chambers and various other therapies to speed the healing process.  The Center focuses mainly on chronic wounds, such as those suffered by people with diabetes, though other types of serious wounds are treated there as well.

"Most of the wounds, since the inception of the Wound Center, have been chronic wounds," said Malinowski.  "These wounds have multiple ideologies such as diabetes, arterial disease, or immunological disease that cause the patient to have either poor healing or poor circulation so that they're note healing at the rate that a patient without the disease process would heal."

Patients with wounds that are recommended to wound care centers generally need for their center to be within their own community.  Treatments are most effective when done everyday.  Each treatment lasts between 90 minutes to two hours, and 40 to 60 treatments are administered.  For this reason, Summit residents are particularly fortunate to have a center within their community.

"Summit is a huge part of our patient community, so we're providing Summit residents with the highest level of care right here in their community," said Malinowski.  "Patients who are referred to our center have access to accelerated wound care products and advanced wound therapies that physicians within the community don't normally have access to."

The Wound Care Center prides itself on delivering a quality experience to their patients.  They have a rigorous screening process for the therapy, and if there is any question at all about patient safety, they do not put them in a chamber.  While the experience is beneficial for some, like any process, it is not without its discomforts.  The patient, once in the chamber, is dropped two atmospheres below sea level, and experiences something much like an assimilated scuba dive.  The Center does everything possible to ensure their patients' comfort however.

"I was actually the first person to go in the chamber," said Malinowski. "I needed to experience it so that when out patients went in, someone in our department would be able to describe the feeling.  We also didn't want it to be something that was so uncomfortable that we wouldn't be able to say not to worry.  Basically, what I felt was a pressure difference in my ears that was like being in an airplane and no worse than that."

Overlook currently uses the second largest single-person chambers on the market. Hyperbaric therapy works by delivering oxygen to a body under pressure.  This allows the oxygen to reach areas of poor circulation and stimulates the growth of new blood vessels.  Overlook's facilities are state-of-the-art, their staff is certified by multiple associations, and they are handicapped accessible. 

"These are mono-place chambers, which means only one person can go in at a time, so we have two of them," said Malinowski.  "This seems to be the safer delivery of hyperbaric therapy, rather than a multi-place chamber which means that multiple people could go in at once.  In that case the nurse also goes in with the patients which exposes her to constant compression which is not always the best thing."

Overlook has to take especially good care of its nurses, as they are among the leading experts in the area of wound healing at the hospital.

"About 95% of our nurses are certified by a multitude of organizations that offer wound care certification," said Malinowski. "They are consulted on patients on the in-patient side to make treatment recommendations.  Many times we are even educating the doctors and the residents because it is not their specialty, but it is our nurses' specialty."

In fact, when the certification committees evaluated the center, they could not come up with any recommendations for areas in which they could improve.  The Overlook staff, always aware of their patients' experience, came up with some for themselves instead.

"It was very difficult to find something to work on, because neither [committee] had any recommendation for us," said Malinowski. "So you look for something that will really raise the bar.  We're looking at waiting room wait times which are notorious on satisfaction surveys.  We listen to what our patients tell us, and we're trying to keep that below 10 minutes for our patients."

While all facilities are considered the Gold standard, Summit Overlook has another point of pride.  The wound care treatments are covered by Medicare and the Wound Care Center has been successful in gaining approval from private insurance providers.

"Hyperbaric is considered the standard treatment," said Malinowski. "There are some patients that are not Medicare patients that we do treat here.  As a department we've done very, very well for our patients with their claims.  We haven't had any denials in the second quarter of 2010, which means that we're providing them with the appropriate documentation that shows the quality of care that we're providing is appropriate for insurance reimbursement."

Treatments are generally at the recommendation of your primary physician, however the Overlook Community Outreach truck regularly goes out into the Summit community and provides the opportunity to get tested for signs of wounds that may not be visible but are dangerous.