A quick update…
We’ve been super busy empowering clients’ wound care businesses so far in 2018:
Engagements in Hong Kong, Malaysia, coast-to-coast in the US, and now gearing up for some groundwork in Mexico and both Eastern and Western Europe, to name just a few. In between, we’ve been attending and prepping for key industry events, including Diabetic Limb Salvage (DLS) in Washington, DC (ending today), SAWC Spring in Charlotte, North Carolina (26-29 April), followed by EWMA in Krakow, Poland (9-11 May). The rest of the year shows no signs of slowing down, either!
But when Today’s Wound Clinic (TWC) Managing Editor Joe Darrah asked me to contribute to this month’s edition (April 2018), I just couldn’t turn him down. That’s because the theme of the entire edition is, “How to Fix Your Failing Wound Clinic.” It’s a topic of great interest to me, since managing wound centers forms the cornerstone of my wound care experience. In other words, it’s an important lens through which we provide our clients insights, guidance, and confidence.
As such, I’m proud to share with you the finished article, Diagnosis & Treatment of The Failing Wound Care Center: 2 Underappreciated Considerations. Free print copies of the entire April TWC magazine will be distributed at SAWC Spring later this month, too (usually near the entrance to the exhibition hall).
Organizational and Management Wound Care Center Challenges
I urge anyone with an interest in this topic to check out the full article and share it with colleagues who might find it of value. Following is a quick summary of the issues covered.
Today, there are more resources available than ever for getting a struggling (or new) wound care center on the right track. These include medical and product training, clinical documentation courses, mobile assessment platforms, specialty electronic health records (EHRs), and revenue cycle management and supply chain consultants, to name just a few.
In fact, when hospitals and wound centers partner with a wound care management company, the goal is often to pull together several of those “tools” together into a single package. But I had yet to come across a fair (unbiased), third party look at the “big picture” options available. As such, the article focuses on two considerations:
Organizational: What is the reporting structure (if any) of the wound care center? Is it a good fit for the size, needs, and challenges / aspirations of the team? How can the right balance be struck so that wound care services receive enough attention and resources, yet don’t suffer from micromanagement or apathy? The article weighs the relative advantages and drawbacks of the following structures:
- Reporting to hospital C-Suite
- Reporting to hospital VP/director-level
- Independent/owner reporting structure
Management: Although there have recently emerged an increasing number of flavors of wound care management, for the sake of this discussion, we divided them into three categories:
- Full service outsourced
- Flexible outsourced
- Insourced
If anyone tells you that one form is superior to the other in all cases and for all wound centers, they’re either not being genuine or they simply do not have a full command of the wound care services space. Although a deep dive into wound care management approaches goes way beyond what can be communicated in a single article, the goal is to expand the reader’s horizons when considering options.
Are you facing similar challenges?
Executives and investors facing wound care services challenges such as those mentioned in the article are always encouraged to reach out. We have worked on both sides of the equation, and our interest is to help clients choose the best path forward for their current situation–whatever shape that may take. If you’re involved with:
- A struggling or new wound care center,
- A program seeking to deliver at a higher level, or
- Discovery or due diligence on a potential wound care services investment
Get in touch or seek us out at one of the upcoming major industry conferences.