[Network of surgical wound centers using a new electronic data processing documentation system]

Care of chronic wounds is of enormous medical, social and economic importance. Nevertheless there is a lack of epidemiological and economical data. A network of ten wound care centers was created and data were documented in a new computerized wound documentation system.

Treatment was performed according to a comprehensive and standardized wound care protocol. The new documentation system is a network-capable solution. Digital images and planimetry as well as patient and wound related data are recorded.

During the first year the ten centers treated and documented already 3281 wounds. There is a wide spectrum of different chronic wounds treated in the participating centers. Despite of long wound duration of several wounds with a median of 5 weeks (range 0-62 years), the healing rate was 80% within 455 days.

Large amounts of data can be collected and scientifically evaluated in the wound net. This is realized by a new computerized documentation system, which was integrated into the clinical routine and enables clear and standardized documentation. Therefore even large multicenter therapy studies may be performed easily in the wound net and economical data could be collected.