Successful Wound Care Program for Home Health with Corstrata

Wound care is a problem in home health that costs the industry $40 billion per year! Join us as we hear from industry leaders, Katherine Piette and Alicia Jenkins on how to tackle the wound care problem. 

Katherine Piette is the CEO and Co-Founder of Corstrata. As a 20+ year post-acute, healthcare executive, Katherine has served in quality, marketing, and operational roles. She brings extensive experience in Telehealth, continuous process improvement, project planning, and organizational redesign for care management and high-opportunity, high-cost populations including wounds and ostomies. 

Alicia Jenkins, RN, BS, CWCN, serves as Corstrata’s Clinical Director of Provider Services. Alicia is a recognized, experienced Wound Consultant and leader in Home Health, Hospice, and post-acute settings. With more than 20 years of experience in post-acute care, she has extensive knowledge of virtual wound management and a proven history of improving patient and business outcomes. She offers a deep perspective on the opportunities for post-acute providers with wound and ostomy patients. 

Wounds are respected in post acute as high utilizers of clinical time and wound supply resources. There is lack of access to wound experts to help improve treatment plans and financial and clinical outcomes associated with wound patients. 

In this episode we talk about: 

1. How big of a problem is wound care in the home health industry and what does it mean if a wound isn’t treated properly?

2. What should be included in a successful home health wound care program?

3. What are biggest gaps seen within wound care, industry-wide?

4. Why is identification and staging of wounds so critical for documentation? 

5. How can agencies reduce face to face visits and increase healing time?

7. What new trends are being seen in care delivery? And how does partnering with a wound care expert benefit a home health agency?

6. What are the benefits of tech-enabled wound care? 

How big of a problem is wound care? 

There is a lack of knowledge regarding wounds and how to address them and take care of them. Wounds are seen across all diagnoses. Frequently patients come out of the hospital with a wound(s) that linger. It’s a challenge for the patient because it’s painful, maybe odorous and takes time to heal. An average of about 30% of the patient population in home health has a wound. The knowledge to care for that patient need is very important. 

Not only does it affect the patient, it has financial implications within the home health agency, including high supply costs. 

What are the components of a successful wound care program? Katherine and Alicia give us the 6 key ingredients to building a comprehensive wound and skin integrity policy and treatment plan. One of those is the access to certified wound care specialists. 

Home health wound care documentation effects treatment plan, outcomes, and reimbursement. How should pressure injuries be staged according to the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel? Reimbursement is dependent on appropriate and thorough documentation, coding, and OASIS outcomes. It is important for agencies to have access to wound experts; Tech can enable clinicians to analyze information at the bedside. 

Corstrata is a specialized Telehealth services company that offers virtual access to certified wound and ostomy specialists to improve patient outcomes and lower costs. Call 800-566-1307 for more information.