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Wound Healing Center
If a wound hasn't healed in four weeks, we need to see you now.
That wound could develop into a chronic, non-healing wound. And left untreated, it could cause serious, even permanent damage.
That's why we created the Wound Healing Center at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. This state-of-the-art, outpatient resource is a specialized wound care facility with three hyperbaric oxygen chambers and six treatment areas provide the most advanced artificial skin techniques available.
We specialize in the treatment of chronic wounds and non-responsive conditions, offering hospital-based outpatient wound care and hyperbaric oxygen therapy as well as disease management and diabetes care. In addition to tissue oxygenation, the center also employs the use of vascular studies, tissue culturing and pathology, revascularization, skin grafting and clinical or surgical debridement. Conditions treated include diabetic wounds of the lower extremities, pressure ulcers, soft tissue radiation injuries, necrotizing infections and compromised skin grafts and flaps.
The skilled and caring medical staff includes registered nurse case managers and physicians who are specialists in vascular surgery, general surgery, plastic surgery, internal medicine, podiatry and hyperbaric medicine.
The center treats patients with chronic and advanced conditions that have not responded to previous therapies. After performing a thorough exam of a new patient's wound, including taking photographs to track wound healing progress, the center's clinical staff becomes a partner with the patient's doctor. Through regular reports and phone calls, the center works with the patient's doctors and other experts in the program to develop a total approach to treatment and care. Evidence-based and best practice driven treatments mean patients do not undergo any treatment or progress to a new level of treatment until the need is clearly indicated. Patients may self-refer. In most instances treatments are covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance plans without requiring a referral.
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Medical conditions that are treated at the Wound Healing Center include:
- Diabetic foot ulcers
- Arterial ulcers - occurs when plaque builds up in the arteries reducing the amount of blood delivered to the body.
- Venour ulcers - develop when blood pools in the lower leg veins leading to tissue breakdown. This pooling problem is usually a result of the veins' inability to move blood back toward the heart.
- Pressure sores/ulcers - also known as bed sores. These sores are injuries to the skin and underlying tissue usually caused by unrelieved pressure.
- Bone infections (osteomyelitis)
- Gangrene
- Radiation injuries
- Soft tissue infections
- Post-op infections
Referral to the Wound Healing Center can be made when any of the following criteria apply:
- Full or partial thickness wounds that fail to show significant clinical improvement
- Other necrotizing soft tissue (subcutaneous, muscle, fascia) infections
- Osteomyeltis
- Radiation tissue injury (soft tissue and osteoradionecrosis)
- Crush injury
- Compromised or failing skin graft and flaps
- Brown recluse spider bites
- Vascular insufficiency ulcers
- Diabetic/neuropathic wounds
- Lymphedema/venous stasis
- Gangrene/necrosis
- Pressure ulcers/decubitus
- Post-op infections
- Burns
- Non-healing infected wounds