I am a CWS and the MDS Coordinator in our
facility. I do weekly measurements, documentation and tx recommendations on
all partial/full thickness wounds. I give an inservice 2 x year to all
licensed staff on staging, wound care and management and using our
facility wound protocols. My 2 cents.....Susan...were you cited for this?
Are you basing your coding on HER documentation? Or are you assessing the
wounds yourself then coding the MDS? I am confused. The wound nurse should
be documenting "healing" Stage III etc. This will support your coding. If
you are unable to see the wound bed it is a IV. Even if you can see nice
wonderful granulation at the margins, but can't see the center(bed) of the
wound. Most facilities don't have the luxury of a CWS/WOCN. I have to say
most of the wounds I evaluate are skin tears, etc. We don't have any
pressure areas in our 97 bed facility at this time. When I started, there
were 20 pressure areas. The staff are very receptive to my
inservices and really care about doing the right thing.
dawn
Subject: wound nurses
I seen some discussion about wound
nurses. Do a lot of you have wound nurses? Are they Certified
Wound Specialists? Or WOCN nurses??? Or are they just nurses in your
facility that you have titled as your �wound�nurse. Just
curious. I have a lot of responsibilities in our facility in regards
to skin issues and questions but I am not certified as a �wound
nurse�. I would love to be but doubt that our facility would
part with me as a care plan MDS coordinator and second of all it is very
costly to become a WOCN nurse.
If you have a wound nurse or
specialist�. How do you utilize them in your facility???
