by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 6, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
Re-printed from Today’s Wound Clinic We are at an important crossroads in the field of wound management. From the perspective of new technologies, the future is bright. Unfortunately, the future of the field itself is dismal. Under Medicare’s new Quality Payment...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 3, 2019 | Do the Right Thing: Thoughts on Quality, Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
The Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders parterned with the US Wound Registry (USWR) to develop a suite of wound care relevant quality measures. This year, 3 of those CMS approved quality measures were selected for depiction on Physician Compare. An article about this...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 2, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight
A few weeks ago we began an experiment right here on this blog, taking a look at a complicated wound care case and “crowdsourcing” the diagnosis. We thought it would be fun to share some of the comments to date, along with some follow-up comments from me....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 27, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Re-printed from November 25, 2015 The Mayflower left the port of Southampton in August 1620 but was forced to put into Plymouth, England for repairs. The 102 passengers and 30 crew members finally left Plymouth for America on September 16, 1620. Blown off course by...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 20, 2019 | Miscellaneous Musings
As part of my holistic approach to wound management, I offered to wear this ring for awhile so the patient wouldn’t risk cutting herself with it again. For some reason she didn’t agree to that plan. I had to be satisfied with requesting a home health PT evaluation for...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 18, 2019 | Don't Miss This
These excruciatingly painful left leg lesions began after a minor scratch five month earlier. New lesions had continued to form in response to debridements at another wound center. She had a new and rapidly enlarging anterior shin lesion on the other leg that formed...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 15, 2019 | Don't Miss This
The photo above shows the un-encouraging 6-month course of a dehisced abdominal wound. There’s not much to show for all my hard work. Treatment with Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) had absolutely no impact (and broke down the periwound skin), so we stopped. I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 13, 2019 | Miscellaneous Musings, Undaunted Spirit Award
With her permission, I am sharing the photo of this beautiful woman who had a cardiac arrest 6 months ago in conjunction with an acute MI, went into cardioenic shock and was kept alive with the help of a left ventricular assist device. She’s got a host of underlying...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 12, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight
Netflix has a new series called “Diagnosis.” The star is Lisa Sanders, MD, a columnist for The New York Times Magazine which publishes her column, also called “Diagnosis,” in which she presents a puzzling medical case and people from around the world help her figure...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 11, 2019 | Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Healthcare Payment Policy
A few weeks ago we published a manuscript about the development of the Wound Healing Index for Venous Leg Ulcers (VLUs). The link is below. What is the VLU WHI? The VLU WHI makes it possible to predict at the initial visit whether a venous ulcer will heal with...
