Deleting the O in our name

Members of the United Ostomy Association of America were disappointed to see the exclusion of ostomy from your new name (Wound Management & Prevention). We can appreciate the reasoning behind your decision based on the health care industry’s greater focus on wound care; however, for the estimated 725 000 to 1 million people living with an ostomy or continent diversion (and the approximate 100 000 annual new patients facing this surgery), a critical need for ostomy care information and research remains. 

More importantly, lumping ostomy under wound care is a fallacy that concerns us. We strive in many instances to educate key decision-makers that an ostomy is not a wound. For example, just recently it was brought to our attention that an assisted-living facility in Connecticut would not change a resident’s (with an ostomy) wafer because “it is an open wound,” and only a family member could do so under their policy. 

We hope you will share UOAA concerns with this health care community in the hopes that many will continue focusing research on ostomy care and management and spread the message that ostomies are not wounds. 

Jeanine Gleba 

UOAA Advocacy Manager 

The Publisher, Editors, and Staff of the newly named Wound Management & Prevention are sympathetic to your concerns and appreciate you taking the time to contact us. In no way do we intend to lessen our coverage of ostomy care. We understand that although an ostomy has been referred to as a hole that requires attention not unlike a chronic wound, more to the point is that ostomy management also affects the skin (eg, an ill-fitting ostomy appliance can result in leakage that can compromise skin in the peristomal area). Although the word skin has never appeared in our name, skin maintenance and health are very much a part of the health care niche we cover, and preventing peristomal skin complications (one of many ostomy-related topics we address) is an important concern. 

To demonstrate our commitment to providing information on ostomy-related topics, Wound Management & Prevention invited the UOAA to solicit its professional and lay members to provide information to ensure the continued provision of clinical and personal clarity and insights. Together we are creating a column — Upfront With Ostomies — to commence with our April issue. The first column will re-introduce the UOAA to our readers to underscore how clinicians can use the UOAA and its new resources with their patients, insights this editor is grateful to acquire and share.

Ironically, our manuscript submissions on the clinical and psychosocial dynamics of managing an ostomy are at an all-time high. In short, the O may be missing from the journal title but not from its overall mission to inform wound, ostomy, continence, skin, and nutrition practitioners and their patients.

Barbara Zeiger, Editor 

Wound Management & Prevention ν