Enhancing Patient Care Through Advanced Wound Dressing Standards: A Wound Care Collaborative Community (WCCC) Initiative
The WCCC has taken a proactive stance with its Dressing Standards Workstream, driven by a singular mission: to enhance patient access to the most clinically appropriate wound dressings. To achieve this, the WCCC emphasizes the need for thorough evaluations of wound dressings using standardized tests that are relevant to clinical practice and provide measurable performance metrics.
Currently, sheet-based wound dressings are evaluated using various test methods derived from published standards. While these standards provide valuable guidance, many methods are incompletely specified or insufficiently relevant to real-world wound care scenarios. This has resulted in individualized modifications by test users with no established best practices and no consistent baseline set of standardized tests for pre-clinical evaluations. This initiative aims to create consistency in product evaluations that are recognized by various stakeholders, including clinicians, industry, and material management teams, to support better-informed decision-making when selecting dressings.
Developing a Standardized Pre-Clinical Testing Framework for Wound Dressings
In establishing and promoting standardized performance test criteria, the aim is to set a benchmark for excellence in the assessment of wound dressings, with a particular focus on sheet-based wound dressings. Central to the workstream's objectives is promoting consistency in the evaluation of the pre-clinical effectiveness of dressings, with a direct emphasis on clinical and biological relevance in testing. Pre-clinical testing is emphasized as a vital component of this initiative, designed to complement but not replace clinical evidence. Gaps that may not be captured in clinical evaluations may be addressed by pre-clinical testing to provide a robust foundation for understanding wound dressing performance in a controlled and reproducible manner. By promoting a consistent set of standards, the workstream aims to foster a more cohesive and effective approach in evaluating wound dressing performance. Further, clinicians will benefit from clear recommendations on performance test standards and data, which will support evidence-based decision-making. Similarly, industry will benefit from a unified framework for the evaluation and development of new products that address clinical needs. Finally, a foundational aspect of this initiative involves standardizing definitions and terminology crucial to the development of these standardized tests.
Advancing Wound Dressing Standards Through Collaboration: Meeting Clinical Needs and Identifying Gaps
Call to Action: Clinicians and Materials Management Teams
A key strength of the WCCC initiative lies in the collaborative community and its commitment to capturing feedback from diverse stakeholders including clinicians, materials management and procurement teams, regulators, and industry experts. In its initial phase, the WCCC Dressing Standards Workstream seeks critical feedback from clinicians to identify key clinical needs such as fluid handling, strength, durability, and antimicrobial properties for sheet-based wound dressings. This feedback will be used to align clinical needs with existing test methods and standards for evaluating wound dressings. Clinicians play a vital role in defining the functional parameters essential for effective wound management across various wound types, including moisture management, mechanical and physical properties, and antimicrobial efficacy. Their insights, including common dressing inadequacies, are instrumental in correlating these parameters to specific wound needs. This mapping process will align standardized test protocols with diverse wound care requirements and highlight gaps where current standards fail to reflect real-world clinical scenarios. By addressing these gaps, the workstream can drive innovation in wound dressing development, shape research priorities, and highlight external funding opportunities to support pre-clinical research.
Call to Action: Wound Dressing Companies, Contract Research Organizations, Academic Researchers, and Regulatory Stakeholders
The WCCC seeks feedback from key stakeholders including wound dressing companies, contract research organizations, independent researchers, and regulatory experts, to provide essential insights into dressing test standards. This input helps identify how these standards are utilized, their limitations, and existing gaps. This dialogue fosters innovation and can help drive improvements in the development, pre-clinical evaluation, and selection of dressings. By capturing diverse perspectives, the workstream is encouraging a robust exchange of ideas aimed at enhancing the overall quality and reliability of wound dressing products. Moreover, the promotion of transparency, consistency, and collaboration within the wound care community aims to transcend the current siloed approach in evaluating wound dressings.
Call to Action: Other Wound Care Initiatives and Standards Organizations
The WCCC acknowledges the importance of collaboration with other wound care associations, standards organizations, and advisory panels globally. We invite these organizations to join us in improving both wound dressing test method standards and in developing clear standard definitions and terminology. By sharing knowledge and capabilities, we can accelerate progress and foster a unified global wound care community.
We call upon other wound care initiatives to collaborate with us. Your insights and contributions can help enhance our collective understanding and develop more reliable wound dressing test standards. Together, we can advance patient access to optimal wound dressings and improve patient outcomes.
Join Us in Advancing Wound Dressing Standards
The WCCC calls for engagement from the wound care community, particularly industry and clinical participants, in establishing and promoting standardized performance test criteria for wound dressings. The WCCC will align standardized test protocols with the various clinical needs of wounds, identifying where gaps exist, and recommending a path forward in the consistent and clinically-relevant evaluation of the pre-clinical performance of wound dressings. The outcome of this work will be published and shared with the FDA and government funding agencies. Through this collaborative effort the WCCC Dressing Standards Workstream is committed to ensuring patient access to best in class wound dressings.
Sarah Griffiths Langbord,1,2 Ankur Gandhi,1,3 Randy Schwartz,1,4 Erik Nygren,1,5 Amy McNulty,1,6 Aaron Strickland,1,7 Jaideep Banerjee,1,8 Howard Walthall,1,9 Vickie R. Driver1,10
1WCCC Gaps Work Group; 2NOxy Health Products; 3SKG RegenMed Consulting; 4Med Market Consultants; 5Mölnlycke Health Care; 6Solventum; 7iFyber; 8Smith & Nephew; 9Venture Medical; 10Washington State University
