Mary Rutan Hospital is celebrating its addition of a specialized, comprehensive wound care and hyperbaric medicine treatment center located on the hospital campus at 205 E. Palmer Road, Bellefontaine. The new Mary Rutan Hospital Wound Care Center provides state-of-the-art outpatient wound care close to home, hospital officials said this week.
Every year, millions of Americans with diabetes or circulatory problems develop non-healing wounds that limit their activity or even threaten their lower extremities. These problems usually respond to the use of the latest advances in wound care therapy.
The wound care center at Mary Rutan Hospital offers advanced treatment options for chronic skin wounds and ulcers, decubitus ulcers (bedsores), vascular wounds, non-healing surgical wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, compromised skin grafts, chronic osteomyelitis, soft tissue radionecrosis, crush injuries, pressure ulcers, venous stasis ulcers or arterial ulcers.
“Between five and seven million Americans experience at least one form of a non-healing wound annually and the incidence of these wounds is increasing by approximately 10 percent each year,” said Dr. Michael Cray, wound care center medical director.
“Many of these individuals suffer from wounds that refuse to heal despite conventional treatment.”
Mary Rutan Hospital Wound Care Center provides a comprehensive approach to treating patients with non-healing wounds. The highly skilled team features physicians, nurses and technicians with advanced training in wound care and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. HBO promotes healing by increasing the level of oxygen in the tissue and improving the white blood cells’ healing efficiency.
Therapy is administered in a hyperbaric chamber that delivers 100 percent oxygen with increased atmospheric pressure, stimulating the entire body’s natural healing responses. Patients undergoing treatment have complete privacy in an individual chamber, equipped with a television for patient comfort and entertainment.
HBO helps the body’s oxygen-dependent, wound-healing mechanism function more efficiently. While enclosed in a chamber at greater-than-normal atmospheric pressure, patients breathe pure oxygen, saturating their blood plasma and allowing it to carry 10 to 15 times the usual amount of healing oxygen to the body’s tissues.
Especially beneficial for diabetic patients with non-healing ulcers, as well as those with arterial ulcers and other types of wounds that fail to respond to conservative therapy, HBO is also a treatment for conditions without open wounds, such as osteomyelitis, radionecrosis and osteoradionecrosis.
“Our team is thrilled to offer our community the individualized care needed to achieve the healing of complex wounds,” Dr. Cray said.
Mary Rutan Hospital Wound Care Center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
For more information about wound care or to schedule an appointment, call (937) 592-4039 or visit www.maryrutan.org/woundcare.