Wound Care Initiative

The Australian Health Research Alliance (AHRA) Wound Care Initiative was a national collaboration involving the Department of Health, Wounds Australia, health and medical research teams, acute care services and primary healthcare. The initiative aimed to create an integrated approach to wound management that would deliver improved patient outcomes and reduce the health and economic cost of wounds in Australia.

Wounds Australia  partnered with Health Translation Queensland and the Western Australian Health Translation Network (WAHTN) to oversee the initiative.

The AHRA Wound Care Initiative involved four projects:

1. Determine the actual (not modelled) cost of wound care based on best practice and best product
2. Update the 2016 Standards for Wound Prevention and Management to include new guidelines and a self-audit tool
3. Coordinated education and training
4. Plan for a coordinated program of research excellence

In addition to co-leading the overall initiative, Health Translation Queensland partnered with the Queensland University of Technology to deliver project three and four of the AHRA Wound Care Initiative.

Project three

Project three aimed to support health professionals build their knowledge and capacity in evidence based wound care through improved access to better integrated training and education.

To achieve this, the following project objectives were attained:

• identify and list all active wound care training and education courses available nationally, and explore gaps, priority areas and suitable approaches to deliver low cost, accessible education and training.
• improve health care professional awareness of current/active wound care education and training courses through the establishment of a national directory

The Wounds Education and Training Directory launched in February 2023 and can be accessed here.

The project team's paper Building wound care capability: The development of an education and training directory for health professionals in Australia was published in the Wound Practice & Research: Journal of the Australian Wound Management Association in September 2022. Read more here.

Project team:

• Associate Professor Christina Parker
• Dr Angela Jones
• Dr Andrew Francis
• Laura Robson

Project four

Project four aimed to develop a coordinated program of research, aimed at supporting continuous improvement in wound care nationally.

The objective of stream four activity was to:

• guide the future direction of Australian wound care research through the identification of research gaps and priorities
• provide recommendations for a national research program to establish effective collaborative models of care and enable optimal outcomes for individuals, community and the health system
• improve researcher and health professional knowledge of current research through establishment of a national directory of wound research and biobanks

The Wounds Research Directory launched in February 2023 and can be accessed here.

Project team:

• Dr Kathleen Finlayson
• Professor Allison Cowin
• Dr Ut Bui
  

Wound Care Initiative Resources:

• AHRA Wound Care Initiative flier

Project four scoping review protocols:

• https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.058185101675676
• https://eprints.qut.edu.au/214039/
• https://eprints.qut.edu.au/226119/