Positive results from wound care program

Marie Malackany has a message to get out — the UPMC Wound Care Program saved her leg.

Marie learned about the Wound Care program from a helpful UPMC Health Plan customer service representative. Less than four weeks after starting the program, her leg wound was completely healed. Before she entered the Wound Care program, problems with blisters on her leg had bothered Marie off and on for about six years.

The UPMC Wound Care program is a collaborative effort of UPMC Health Plan, the UPMC Center for Quality Improvement and Innovation, and UPMC/Jefferson Regional Home Health, and the UPMC Wound Healing/Limb Preservation Clinic. The aim of this collaboration is to significantly improve patient health as well as decrease inpatient admissions due to non-healing wounds.

In Marie’s case, the UPMC Wound Care Program was especially helpful because she has arthritis and making frequent visits to her physician was extremely difficult for her. “I didn’t go anywhere,” says Marie, 75, a UPMC for Life Specialty Plan member from Glenshaw. “I could hardly walk and had to drag my leg a lot. The pain was unbearable.”      

Once Marie joined the program, she received a visit at her apartment from Marilyn Germansky, a registered nurse who is also an enterostomal therapist. Ms. Germansky took pictures of the wound and sent the pictures to Marie’s primary care physician, Dr. Sarah Larkin. After viewing photographs of the wound, Dr. Larkin diagnosed Marie’s condition as venous stasis ulcers.

Dr. Larkin designed a treatment plan specifically for Marie. Ms. Germansky held Marie to a strict regimen. “She told me: ‘This is very serious. Do everything I tell you,’” says Marie.

And Marie did, changing her diet drastically to eliminate salt, caffeine, and pasta, among other things. She also reduced the amount of time she stood or sat in any one place, and found time in her day to elevate her legs above her heart for 20 minutes at a time, four times a day. Home care nurses came every other day to help treat the wound, and Ms. Germansky came back to take pictures every other week. After three weeks, the improvement was noticeable.

“Her condition was tough to treat, and I am really pleased with the job the Wound Care Program did,” says Dr. Larkin. “They performed an incredible service by keeping Marie out of the hospital. They really accommodated her and made her feel a lot better.”

“I look at my leg now and it’s hard to believe it’s my leg,” says Marie. “It’s the best it’s ever looked.”
 
The UPMC Wound Care Program asks physicians to identify UPMC Health Plan members with non-healing wounds of approximately four weeks’ duration or longer for enrollment into the program. Members must reside in Allegheny County, although members who live outside Allegheny County will be considered on a case-by-case basis.