WOUND CARE SPECIALIST REGISTERED NURSE

Wound Care Specialist

Influences care outcomes by collaborating with members of the interdisciplinary team. Core elements of performance include knowledge and active participation in the unit/program level quality improvement process and initiatives as well as customer service programs. The Wound Care Specialist (WCS) provides direct and indirect nursing care to patients and families in the inpatient and outpatient areas. Accountable for adhering to establish policies, standards of care and standards of practice. The WCS demonstrates leadership when providing and improving patient care in an inpatient and outpatient setting. The WCS serves as a role model when functioning as a clinical consultant, content expert. The WCS runs wound care clinics and provides specialized evidence-based treatments for non-healing ulcers and wounds to the inpatient as well as outpatient population. The population includes patients with pressure injuries, venous/arterial ulcers, diabetic ulcers, traumatic and non-healing surgical wounds. The WCS also collaborates with physicians, therapists, social services, and home care agencies and provides the most current scientific- based wound treatment modalities from in-patient to long-term care and/or home care settings. The WCS is responsible for the education of caregivers through seminars and workshops that improve the services rendered and are chair for the wound care work group. The WCS ensures that quality nursing care is rendered to patients in accordance with policies, procedures, and the standards of Nursing Service and the VA Medical Center, under the guidance and directive of the Charge Nurse and Nurse Manager. As a registered nurse provides care and counseling of persons or in the promotion and maintenance of health and prevention of illness and injury based upon the nursing process which includes systematic data gathering, assessment, appropriate nursing judgment, and evaluation of human responses to actual or potential health problems through such services as case finding, health teaching, health counseling; provision of care supportive to or restorative of life and welt-being; and executing medical regimens prescribed by a licensed or otherwise legally authorized provider. The nurse's primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family, group, or community.