22 Aug 2011 Help with healing at Conway

by Sonja J. Keith

The Conway Regional Wound Healing Center features a caring and compassionate staff armed with the latest technology to help individuals heal.

According to Neal Best, program director, the center was created to offer wound care, which was recognized as a community need. Opened nearly three years ago, the center is one of the few offered in Central Arkansas outside of Little Rock. Conway Regional partners with the National Healing Corporation to provide the center.

“It is a specialty clinic with advanced training,” he said, explaining that the center staff receives intensive training on wound care and hyperbaric medicine.

The center has an impressive 94 percent healing rate, with the average time to heal of seven weeks. The staff – which includes five physicians and five other employees – sees 60-65 patients a week. Last year, the center staff treated 300 wounds.

While the center has treated adolescents to older adults, the average patient age is 70. Most patients suffer from diabetic or pressure ulcers.

The center utilizes a variety of treatments, including two hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) chambers for chronic wounds. According to Best, HBO treatment increases the amount of oxygen in the patient’s blood, allowing oxygen to pass more easily through the plasma into the wounds to heal them. HBO chambers surround patients with 100 percent oxygen at a higher than normal atmospheric pressure.

HBO therapy has been approved by Medicare to treat patients with more than a dozen conditions, including diabetic foot ulcers, radiation injuries to tissue and bone, necrotizing infections, compromised skin grafts and some types of arterial insufficiency and ischemia.

At the recommendation of her oral surgeon, Laura Spencer of Conway underwent HBO at the center to prepare her jaw for a procedure. Her wound was a result of radiation treatment to her head and neck after a cancer diagnosis in 2008. According to Best, hyperbaric treatment helps ensure a greater success rate for the type of procedure Spencer underwent.

Spencer admits that she was reluctant at first, but the treatments were successful. “I feel good. There were no complications,” she said. “It has been a blessing to me.”

Spencer gives the wound center and its staff high marks. “The staff was really great,” she said. “I thank the Lord for them.”

At first, the hyperbaric chamber might seem a little scary, Best said, but patients usually adapt well. There is a television set equipped with cable service and a DVD player that they can watch during the treatments. A staff member is also present throughout the treatments and there is two-way communication. Treatments typically take 2-2 1/2 hours – 15-20 minutes to reach the correct pressure, 90 minutes for the treatment and 15-20 minutes to return to normal pressure.

Best said that a patient typically has 30-40 daily hyperbaric treatments. With frequent visits to the center, he said patients often feel like “family” to the center staff.

Dr. William McColgan III, a general surgeon, is among the physicians who treat patients at the wound center. “A lot of people were stuck with wounds with no other avenue. They had to live with it,” he said.

Other doctors who practice at the wound healing center are Bill Freeman, M.D. – wound healing center medical director/family practice; Jason Skinner, M.D. – emergency medicine; Vafa Ferdowsian, D.P.M. – podiatrist; and Virendar Verma, M.D. – physical medicine and rehabilitation.

McColgan noted that the clinic is a valuable resource to patients as well as physicians. “We’ve seen some significant improvement in chronic wounds that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise,” he said. “We’ve made a big difference in a lot of people’s lives.”

While a doctor’s referral is appreciated so center staff can know what has already been tried, it is not required to be seen at the wound clinic. “It is a needed resource, and we want to make sure patients and physicians know it is here,” McColgan said.

For more information, please call 501.450.2267 or visit conwayregional.org/woundhealingcenter.