Topical Negative Pressure Therapy in Wound Care: Effectiveness and guidelines for clinical application

The aim in the treatment of any type of wound is to achieve normal and timely healing. Complicated wound healing may affect functional ability and almost always involves appearance or “looks” despite reconstructive measures. Recent figures on either the incidence of wounds or the total cost of wound care in the Netherlands are not available. A reporting system to the public health inspection authority (the so-called quality indicators) was introduced by the Dutch government in order to create more transparency on hospital-related complications in 2003. Since then, complication registration is obligatory in every hospital. This resulted in the registration of the cost of illness in a small group of patients with pressure ulcer wounds. The cost for the pressure ulcer group alone ranges from a low estimate of $362 million to a high estimate of $2.8 billion (1). The cost for the diseases of skin and the subcutis was estimated at € 886 million (1.3% of the total health care costs) in 2005 (2). These figures reflect only the direct costs. They neither reflect the pain, frustration, economic loss nor impaired quality of life of the patients and their families, nor the burden on the health care system in general.

• View at Worldcat

Free Full Text ( Final Version , 1mb )