Porter's Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center
Provides Specialized Care for Hard-to-Heal Wounds
Porter’s Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center continues to stay abreast of advancements in wound care, offering a host of treatments that promote the closure of hard-to-heal wounds and preventing the threat of amputation.Hard-to-heal wounds can be caused by:
Of the thousands of individuals each year who are patients at Porter's wound center – located conveniently on the campus of the Valparaiso Hospital – statistics show that more than 90 percent are able to have their wounds healed.
Wounds treated at Porter are those that have resisted conventional means to heal. The goal 100 percent of the time is to get the wounds closed and healed. Most of the time, Porter physicians and staff are successful.
Porter physicians works as a team, utilizing the most current and comprehensive treatment therapies that have been shown to work.
While using the latest technologies available to stimulate the wound to heal, Porter's team of wound care physicians work with the health system's cardiac and vascular surgeons to assist with circulation, if that has been compromised and with the patients and their primary care physicians regarding their nutrition and protein intake and controlling blood sugar levels.
Part of the advancing science of wound care includes treatments, such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, synthetically grown skin, the use of collagen in wound treatment and a regimen of care that includes fewer bandage dressing changes than were once recommended.
Hyperbaric Chambers Prove Valuable in Wound Care
Every week day, patients travel to Porter to spend time watching movies or napping on beds inside one of two, comfy plastic and steel tubes as part of a regimen to heal their stubborn sores and wounds.For as many as one in five patients who come to Porter, spending time inside one of the health system’s two hyperbaric chambers is critical to their healing process. Developed as a tool for divers who surface too quickly, hyperbaric chambers have been shown to be a valuable tool in the wound care process. The special chambers increase the amount of oxygen carried in the blood and increase blood flow to the wound, where it helps promote the healing process in chronic and hard-to-heal wounds.
Advanced Training Provides Advanced Treatments
In 2008, the medical and clinical staff at Porter’s Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center all became board certified in advanced wound care. What that this means is that Porter physicians and staff have been accredited by the American Academy of Wound Management, the premiere multi-disciplinary wound care credential in the United States.
Treatments offered through the wound care and hyperbaric center include: bio-engineered skin substitutes; treatment in one of Porter’s two hyperbaric chambers; as well as, growth factor, negative pressure and compression therapy.
When Specialized Wound Care is Recommended
Indications for wound care treatment at Porter’s Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center include: diabetic foot ulcers; edema, pressure ulcers, malignancies, osteomyelitis; soft tissue infection; and, arterial and venous disease.
Porter’s Wound Care & Hyperbaric Center
802 LaPorte Ave. (located on the campus of Porter’s Valparaiso Hospital)
For more information, please call 477.5242.