CMC wound care center "not just a band-aid station"

No matter where you are or what city you’re in, if you received serious wounds in an accident and needed immediate care, chances are you’d head for the nearest hospital. 

But for infected wounds, non-healing wounds or chronic wounds like bed sores, you’d want the nearest wound care center: one with a wide range of treatment options, including high-tech therapies, administered by certified wound care nurses who receive regular training on an evolving body of medical evidence. 

That’s not something all hospitals provide. 

Coulee Medical Center does — in fact, it is the only place between Spokane, Wenatchee, and the Tri-Cities to provide full wound care services for inpatient and outpatient care. 

“We’re not your average wound care center,” said Dr. Sam Hsieh, chief medical officer, in a presentation to hospital district board members last month. Hsieh’s talk addressed the state of the program, and his five-year timeline to increase and improve wound care services and access.

“There is no access to appropriate wound care in this whole region,” said Hsieh, his slide showing a map of rural north central Washington. “But we have it.”

CMC offers advanced wound care technologies that a lot of hospitals don’t even have yet, Hsieh said.

Specifically, CMC can provide stem cell treatment — “That’s kind of Star Trek treatment for wounds” — and an enhanced form of negative pressure therapy where a wound vac provides suction while periodically rinsing the wound. CMC can also provide surgical intervention for infected wounds, something not all centers do, he added.

Dr. Hsieh walked through a five-year plan to grow the program by offering more state-of-the-art wound treatment technologies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, hopefully by 2027.

In hyperbaric oxygen therapy, patients breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized environment to increase the oxygen in their lungs and cells, which encourages tissue cell healing.

The center served an average of 30 patients per week in 2023, and aims to increase that to 40 by 2025.

Hsieh emphasized that CMC’s wound care services not only help wounds heal faster and prevent avoidable amputations, but also save the hospital district money.

“Wound care certified nurses are able to prevent [pressure ulcers] progressing from stage three to stage four, which saves about $130,000 per patient,” he said.

Hsieh also touched on the broader hospital need for patient transportation services, and even brought up the idea of a mobile wound care clinic.

“There’s so many times we get cancellations either in clinic or surgery that say, ‘Hey, I don’t have a ride,’” Hsieh said. “We need to fix that problem, because that’s huge. It’s not good patient care, because now they’re delaying their care. Plus, you’re losing huge amounts of revenue from the hospital. They want to come, but there’s no driver.

“If we can fix our transportation issue, it would be phenomenal. I think it would be great for the hospital in general.”