Course Overview

Making confident decisions during wound cleansing and debridement is crucial to achieving a patient’s desired healing outcomes and trajectory. When selecting a cleansing agent, it’s vital to consider if it addresses the root cause of the wound issue. Is the debridement technique you choose aligned with your scope of practice, skill set and confidence level? How well do you understand the range of options available to you in your practice?

This Ausmed Course equips healthcare professionals with the knowledge and understanding to confidently apply best-practice cleansing and debridement techniques within their scope of practice. Guided by current evidence and best-practice techniques, learners will enhance their skills to improve the outcomes of the patients in their care.

Topics

• Understanding and differentiating wound cleansing and wound debridement practices
• Best-practice principles for cleansing and debriding wounds
• Wound cleansing techniques and commonly used wound cleansing agents
• Simple and advanced wound debridement techniques
• Practical demonstrations of best-practice wound cleansing and simple wound debridement techniques
• Contraindications and potential complications for wound debridement

Need

Wound cleansing and debridement are integral components in managing acute and chronic wounds. Confident and effective practice of these procedures aids in addressing local wound factors that can impair healing, reduce infection risk and optimise wound repair.

Healthcare professionals, including nurses, are pivotal in administering this care. However, these practices should be predicated on thorough understanding as they require skills and knowledge.

Therefore, education that will lead to increased proficiency in wound cleansing and debridement is needed to develop practices to improve patient outcomes.

Purpose

The purpose of this Ausmed Course is to provide healthcare professionals with an improved understanding of wound cleansing and debridement practices and enable improved practical application of newfound knowledge in order to achieve positive outcomes for patients with wounds.

Learning Outcomes

• Explain the difference between cleansing and debridement and how best-practice conduct of these procedures can contribute to improved patient outcomes.
• Analyse the impact patient-based, wound-related and environmental factors may have on cleansing and debridement prior to conducting these procedures.
• Confidently select appropriate cleansing agents and best-practice cleansing techniques according to the specific needs of patients with wounds in your care.
• Understand the various types of debridement, including how and when these are utilised, and develop confidence to apply appropriate techniques in clinical practice.
• Identify opportunities for complications to arise when cleansing and/or debriding a wound in your practice.

Target Audience

Nurses and other healthcare professionals working in all clinical areas wherein wound cleansing and debridement are necessary in practice.

Disclosure

No conflict of interest exists for anyone in the position to control content for this activity. Wherever possible, generic or non-proprietary names of medications or products have been used.

Educators

Presented by

Sue Templeton View profile

Sue Templeton RN, BN, MNSc(NP) is an experienced community-based nurse practitioner based in Adelaide who has been specialising in wound management since 1987. With a wealth of clinical expertise, she provides consultancy services and develops and delivers wound management education. Additionally, she has been involved in the development of wound management resources and tools. Sue has been actively engaged with the wound management professional community at local, national and international levels, conducting clinical research, publishing and presenting on the subject. Sue is passionate about improving the lives of persons with a wound and empowering others to deliver best practices in wound management.

Peer reviewed by

Karen Wendland View profile