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AHRA Wound Care Initiative
A national collaboration addressing wound care costs, standards, education and research priorities.
Historical record. Dates, affiliations and project descriptions reflect the period reported in the original WAHTN material.
About the initiative
WAHTN co-led the AHRA Wound Care Initiative with Health Translation Queensland and worked with Wounds Australia and other research translation centres. Four linked projects addressed costs, standards, education and research priorities.
The initiative was guided by the principle that every Australian with a wound should receive the same standard of care, regardless of geographic location, wound type or healthcare provider.
The original WAHTN material described chronic wounds arising from diabetic complications and other comorbidities as a serious public health issue, affecting 400,000 hospital and residential-care patients and incurring $3 billion in treatment costs nationally. It anticipated a growing burden as the population aged and diabetes incidence increased, and highlighted the need for evidence-based wound management to improve outcomes and reduce that burden.
Four areas of work
Understanding the actual cost of wound care
This project sought to determine actual, rather than modelled, wound-care costs using a best-practice, best-product approach. In WA, surveys were completed in two GP practices, three aged care facilities and two public hospitals. In Queensland, surveys covered one public hospital and two GP practices.
These findings, together with data collected by Silverchain Group, informed an analysis by an independent health economist working with the WAHTN Biostatistician Fellow. The work was published in Wound Practice and Research.
The project demonstrated a cost-effective, cost-saving approach to reimbursing wound-care costs through the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) or other schemes. Findings were presented to Federal Department of Health staff; the original project account reported that implementation discussions were ongoing.
Updating national standards
WAHTN and Wounds Australia revised the third edition of the 2016 National Wound Care Standards to produce the Australian Standards for Wound Prevention and Management, 4th Edition. The update incorporated national and international guidelines developed since 2016 and added a new section, Wound Care in the Digital Age.
Draft standards were circulated to more than 400 wound-care bodies and individuals across Australia. More than 170 written reviews were received from wound-care providers, training bodies, policymakers, regulators and legislators.
The standards were officially launched at the Wounds Forum Breakfast in Canberra on 12 September 2023 by the Minister for Health and Aged Care, the Hon Mark Butler MP, and WAHTN Acting Executive Director Dr Debra Turner. They are available through Wounds Australia.
Strengthening training and education
Health Translation Queensland and Monash Partners completed an integrated training and education framework with Wounds Australia. The project aimed to provide access to ongoing, interactive wound-care courses.
The resulting Wounds Education and Training Directory is a comprehensive, freely available source of ongoing courses in wound care and related fields.
Connecting research expertise
Health Translation Queensland and Health Translation SA undertook a targeted literature scoping study with Wounds Australia, with input from research translation centres. It examined chronic wounds, acute wounds and wound science to assess the extent and nature of Australian wound research in a global context.
A gap analysis identified research needs and priorities to inform a proposed five-year program of wound research. An output was the freely available Wounds Research Directory, a database of Australian wound researchers and their work designed to strengthen research networks and support sharing of research evidence.