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Wound Bed Preparation is an essential process to obtain maximum benefits from today's advanced wound care products. Preparing the wound bed can be achieved by the removal of barriers. Removing these barriers may accelerate healing or facilitate the effectiveness of other therapeutic measures.
Wound Bed Preparation can be defined as the process of removing local barriers which may facilitate healing and provide a more efficient means of wound management.
The TIME principle provides a systematic approach to the management of wounds, by focussing on each stage of wound healing and therefore by removing these barriers allows the wounds to heal.
TIME is based on intervention in four clinical areas and leads to an optimal well vascularised wound bed.
Click on one of the above clinical observations to find out more information.
To better explain the principles of TIME click on the link to reveal a pdf of the TIME Table.
Courtesy of The International Advisory Board on Wound Bed Preparation. Adapted from table 6 - Schultz GS, Sibbald, RG, Falanga V et al (2003) Wound bed preparation: systematic approach to wound management Wound Rep Reg 11; 1-28
To summarise, Wound Bed Preparation provides a structured and systematic approach to the management of non healing wounds. The removal of barriers through the principles of TIME should faciliate endogeous healing.
Debridement, reduction of bioburden and exudate management are collectively referred to as Wound Bed Preparation. It is these processes that prepare the wound bed to support the activities necessary for wound healing. All practitioners who are, or will, become involved in both assessing patients for, and initiating techniques relevant to wound bed preparation, should understand the need to remove these barriers.
Typical assessment questions that should be answered in order to start the process of Wound Bed Preparation are:
- Is the wound bed clean or is there necrotic tissue to be removed?
- Are there any clinical signs that there is a problem with bacterial bioburden?
- Does the wound environment seem dry and is there risk for desiccation of cells?
- Is absorption or drainage the objective for topical therapy?
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