Title: Applied health informatics: a multi-year international effort to implement and maintain evidence-based practice for chronic-wound treatment

Authors: Patrick McNees

Addresses: Global Health Security Network, Applied Health Science, Inc., 7777 North Wickham Road, #12-324 Melbourne, FL 32940, USA

Abstract: This paper describes a multi-year attempt to develop, implement and maintain an evidence-based international clinical decision support system for preventing and treating chronic wounds. Incidental to implementation efforts, over 37,000 wound assessments, risk assessments and treatment events were accumulated. These data allowed further confirmation of the evidence on which protocols and algorithms were based as well as empirically based rationales for refinement or the protocols and algorithms. However, during the decade-long project many challenges were faced. Key points of learning are also presented. An iterative incidental model for applied health informatics is presented as a context for viewing the efforts.

Keywords: applied informatics; best practice; clinical decision support; evidence-based practice; healthcare informatics; informatics research; chronic wound treatment; wound assessment; risk assessment; protocols; public policy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2006.010844

International Journal of Public Policy, 2006 Vol.1 No.4, pp.389 - 398

Published online: 06 Sep 2006 *

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