Wound care

Background and research focus

Background

Since 2006, the Wound Care Center of UZ Gent and "EduWond", an educational platform within AUGent, organize multiple wound care events every year as well as a wound care course on postgraduate level. Next to these educational initiatives, an online learning platform, named "DigiWond", has been developed. In 2018, the Wound Care Center created a practical digital wound care algorithm for internal use within UZ Gent. Meanwhile this algorithm has been slightly adapted for use outside UZ Gent and it has been integrated in DigiWond.

Research focus

To study the clinical reasoning skills of healthcare professionals for wound care and to design and validate a digital clinical decision support system for wound care (CDS).

The following research questions will be answered:

  • What are the critical wound characteristics to be assessed, to design an optimal treatment plan for chronic wounds?
  • Which key wound care characteristics are to be adopted in a CDS?
  • What is the clinical reasoning process of medical doctors and nurses when performing a wound assessment and designing a wound care treatment plan?
  • What are the barriers and facilitators to implement a CDS in a clinical setting (nursing homes, primary care, hospital setting)?

Members

Professors and Guest Professors

Dimitri Beeckman

Hilde Beele (contact person)

PhD candidates

Steven Smet

National and international collaborations

Defended PhDs (last 5 years)

Observation of erythema in pressure ulcers and incontinence-associated dermatitis : challenges for research, clinical practice and healthcare education

Dorien De Meyer (2019)