Every Tuesday this month we’ve been having some straight talk about a US Wound Registry Quality Measure. In the 
June/July issue of Today’s Wound Clinic (TWC) I present a case history of a 30 year old man who had been treated for a year at another wound center for a great toe injury that had failed to heal after trauma. He had severe peripheral arterial disease which I diagnosed with non-invasive testing on his first visit. That SHOULD have been done at the other wound center but wasn’t, probably for two reasons: 1) he was young and 2) it was a traumatic wound originally. For some reason, clinicians don’t seem to think that traumatic wounds which fail to heal require arterial screening. I am not sure why that is. “Wounds don’t NOT heal for NO reason.” If you can’t tell me WHY the wound hasn’t healed, then the patient needs vascular screening to determine if hypoxia or ischemia (which are not the same) is responsible. Young people do get vascular disease. This man was a smoker who had claudication and his Dad was dead at age 42 of a heart attack. If we are talking straight—then honestly – why is this hard?
Download the USWR quality measure for vascular screening (CDR 10) and get PQRS credit for doing the right thing with vascular screening!
http://www.uswoundregistry.com/Specifications.aspx
http://www.todayswoundclinic.com/articles/addressing-need-noninvasive-vascular-testing-outpatient-clinic-case-study
http://www.todayswoundclinic.com/blog/best-practices-limb-preservation
Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/carolinefifemd/videos
The opinions, comments, and content expressed or implied in my statements are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the position or views of Intellicure or any of the boards on which I serve.
