Guest Editorial: Tradition versus Translation

   New management tools are constantly coming onto the clinical scene for wound care, including dressings, specialty beds, treatment modalities, and assessment instruments. The researcher's job is to decide if they are as good as the manufacturer or developer claims. Unbiased research is critical for proper use of the product or treatment.

   Conducting this much-needed research is like solving a mystery. Researchers must utilize the most appropriate study design (eg, retrospective or prospective) and analyses to answer their questions - determining whether end results turn out as expected is always an exciting process. Then, results should be published. The clinician new to research eagerly compiles his/her work for an article, submits the manuscript to a journal, and anxiously waits to hear if it will be published. As the researcher becomes more seasoned, experienced, and prolific, keeping up with writing and publishing becomes more and more difficult, especially in light of the increasing demands of clinical practice. Consequently, many researchers/authors seem to be several articles behind in their writing, often resulting in lag time from research to publication or never publishing at all, perhaps because findings are different than expected and assumptions must be revisited.

   However, even when study results are consolidated, reconciled, and shared through presentations and publications, that does not guarantee they will make any difference in clinical practice. Having people approach you and say "I loved your last article" is gratifying, but it does not ensure that our findings will impact practice. The ability to motivate clinicians to ponder using a new product or treatment is admirable, but we need to stimulate action as well as thought.

   For research to have value, it must be translated into practice. Frequently, this does not occur. For example, we know from published research studies that modern wound care dressings improve healing, yet most facilities are still using moist gauze or wet-to-dry dressings. What causes this failure of research translation? It should not solely be the responsibility of the product's manufacturer to educate clinicians - researchers as well must take steps to see that what they have learned is implemented at the patient's bedside.

   There is no quick answer as to how to make this happen. Presenting research results to national and international wound care meetings is a start, but we also need to make our work known to the clinicians doing the hands-on, day-to-day treatments and dressing changes. Often, these are not care providers who can attend conferences and symposia - in fact, these care providers may not even be clinicians but rather, family members or the patients themselves. Therefore, we need to educate the public regarding what has been shown to be "best practice" for wound care. This takes extra time - time we do not readily have to spare.

   Writing for a lay journal or giving a talk to the public does not carry the same prestige or importance as presenting to an audience of our esteemed peers or publishing in pursuit of a promotion and/or tenure in an academic setting. However, as researchers and clinicians, we need to critically examine how our results are used and decide the best way to get these results into everyday clinical practice. Certainly we need to proliferate our study results among our colleagues in order to promote improved protocols for care. But we also must create opportunities to get those improvements directly to the bedside. Otherwise, translation of results stalls and traditional practice continues unchallenged and unchanged.