Sarah Bush Lincoln’s Advanced Wound Center received the Robert A. Warriner III Center of Excellence award for meeting the highest level of quality standards set by Healogics, Inc., the nation’s largest provider of advanced wound care services.
Leaders, physicians and clinicians from Sarah Bush Lincoln gathered recently to celebrate the award. “We are proud to be able to offer such a vital service to the people of our community, and to be able to offer it with such a high level of excellence,” SBL President and CEO Jerry Esker said. “We have an excellent team of doctors and clinical staff who are all dedicated to healing chronic wounds and improving the quality of life for people.”
For two consecutive years, the Advanced Wound Center has achieved patient satisfaction rates higher than 92 percent and a healing rate of at least 91 percent in less than 31 median days. Out of 340 eligible wound care centers across the country, 268 were honored with this award for clinical excellence.
The Advanced Wound Center at Sarah Bush Lincoln has been working to meet the area’s growing needs for wound care treatment since July 2012. “We are able to offer wound care at the highest level,” Advanced Wound Center Medical Director Robert Biggs, MD, said. “The Center’s goal is to work with our patients to enhance their quality of life, and that’s what we focus on when we treat their wounds.”
The Center offers highly specialized wound care to people suffering from diabetic ulcers, pressure ulcers, infections and other chronic wounds, which have not healed in a reasonable amount of time. Some of the leading-edge treatments offered include negative pressure wound therapy, debridement, application of cellular-based tissue or skin substitutes to the wound, offloading or total contact casts and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is an essential part of chronic wound treatment plans. This type of medical treatment increases the amount of oxygen in the patient’s blood, allowing oxygen to pass more easily through the plasma into wounds. In the chamber, the patient is surrounded with 100 percent oxygen at higher than normal atmospheric pressure. Throughout the treatment, the patient is supervised by a specially trained physician and monitored by a technician.
The center is a member of the Healogics network of nearly 800 centers, with access to benchmarking data and proven experience treating approximately 2.5 million chronic wounds.
For more information or to make an appointment, call (217) 238-4850 or go to www.sarahbush.org. A physican referral is not needed to make an appointment at the Advanced Wound Center.
Cutline: Advanced Wound Center staff members pictured left to right are Ruth Bray, RN, hospital liaison; Stacy Scott, RN; Sara Cremeens, RN, clinical nurse manager; Katie Flach, LPN, hyperbaric technician; Nikki Heltsley, APRN; James Hildebrandt, DO, Vice President Medical Affairs; Debbie Murray, RN; Greg Spillman, Clinic Director; Kim Bloemer, officecoordinator, and Greg Taylor, Vice President Practice Management.