WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Strategic Insights for Advancing Wound Care, Hyperbaric Medicine, and Patient Outcomes

The future of wound care demands more than technical expertise — it calls for strategic thinking, clinical leadership, and a commitment to improving outcomes for chronic wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, and other complex conditions. As healthcare evolves, outpatient wound care clinics must find new ways to navigate increasing complexities in patient needs, cost efficiency, and regulatory compliance.

In this perspective, Terrie A. Dittmeyer, MBA, BSN, RN, Vice President of Operations at Shared Health Services, shares key insights drawn from more than 25 years of experience leading wound care management innovation. Her reflections explore why specialized programs matter, the realities today’s patients present, and how Shared Health Services equips its partners to drive sustainable wound care program success.

"Where do we go from here....?"

This is a common question for today’s practitioners when evaluating a non-healing wound. Advancements in medicine have made great strides over the past decade, yet every day we are faced with the challenge of recalcitrant wounds. We need meaningful, patient-focused therapies for our specialty wound clinic populations to save lives, salvage limbs, and improve our patients’ quality of life.

Three points to consider:

1. Patients present to a specialty wound clinic because standard or routine care has failed to heal their wound(s). These patients typically present with a multitude of comorbidities, inhibiting the progression of the wound-healing trajectory.

2. Outpatient wound care clinics maintain the expertise to identify advanced wound care products, therapeutic modalities, and devices pivotal to achieving quality clinical outcomes in this high-risk patient population.

3. Shared Health Services, a wound care and hyperbaric medicine management company, based in Johnson City, Tennessee, partners with outpatient wound clinics providing opportunity to optimize their patient outcomes and promote financial vitality while maintaining current regulatory compliance. Shared Health Services takes pride in working with a consortium of clinical experts with the intellectual capital to foster health innovation beyond the standard of care.

With over 25 years working within the wound care industry, we at SHS embrace the privilege of being the agents driving an improved standard of care for all wound care patients, and assisting our partner clinics to answer the question: Where do we go from here?

Terrie A. Dittmeyer, MBA, BSN, RN is VP of Operations at Shared Health Services

You Might Also Like:

– A Vital Service to Under Served Populations

– Hyperbaric Nursing: An Overview of the Role and Impact

– An Interview with LeadersVoiceUSA: CEO of Shared Health Services