Wound Healing Institute
The Center for Wound Healing is an advanced care center for the treatment of difficult-to-heal wounds of the lower extremities. Our mission is to provide the highest quality clinical services to meet the individual needs of each patient.
Location
Offering unique resources to treat patients with complex wound and vascular issues
The Center for Wound Healing and Limb Preservation uses a unique and innovative combination of resources to assess and treat patients with complex wound conditions and vascular issues. Utilizing fluorescence microangiography – a new technology that can assess blood flow in chronic, non-healing wounds and diabetic ulcers – physicians can guide treatment approaches and evaluate recovery.
Hennepin Healthcare is the first in Minnesota to use the LUNA™ Imaging System during wound assessment. For wounds to heal effectively, healthy blood flow, or microcirculation, is essential. Non-healing wounds can often result from diabetes, a complication from recent surgery, or even frostbite. Hennepin Healthcare has the only multi-chamber hyperbaric oxygen facility in the region that’s used for 24/7 emergency treatment of critically ill patients and those with limb or life-threatening infections.
This program works closely with interventional radiology (a way to look inside your body with non-surgical tests and procedures) and our vascular surgeons when the best option is surgery.
Frequently Asked Questions
When you arrive at our state-of-the-art facility you will meet our providers to discuss your medical history, review medications learn about allergies you might have. We will examine your wound to determine the best treatments. Your wound may be photographed with our 3D camera to accurately measure the wound and document healing over time. Tests may be ordered including blood flow studies, x-ray films and laboratory work to help determine the diagnosis.
All patients are treated with an individualized plan that is developed based on the underlying problem that caused the wound to develop. This treatment plan may change with time and is based on your medical history, results of tests we have ordered and your personal needs. Wound care treatments may include helping you receive medical supplies for dressing changes at home or providing dressing care in our clinic.
Our goal is not just to place a bandage over the wound, but to help determine the underlying cause and ensure a deeper level of healing. Because of this we may order additional tests and/or refer you to experts in other fields of medicine.
An Unna's boot is a special compression dressing that incorporates medication into the bandage to help heal and comfort irritated skin. Typically used in patients with venous insufficiency disease (disease of the veins and the valves within veins) these dressings help alleviate the swelling and irritation associated with this condition.
Negative pressure therapy is a specialized treatment that utilizes a sealed dressing over a wound, along with a medical grade vacuum device that creates sub-atmospheric pressure around the wound. This helps encourage healing and removes fluid and swelling from the site.
Our 3D camera creates a topographical map of the wound, providing accurate surface area and volume measurements of the wound. This gives us better insight into changes occurring in the wound over time.
While the metal scalpel (knife) is the tried and true method to removing dead tissue from a wound, the hydro-scalpel uses a high speed jet of water that effectively removes thin layers of debris and tissues from the wound bed that can harbor bacteria and cause infection. This technique is commonly used in our hospital operating rooms.
Many chronic wounds do not heal as new skin cannot bridge over the open wound. Skin substitute therapy uses cells grown in a laboratory that can be placed on a healthy wound bed to assist and expedite the process of growing skin to close a wound.