How to make a hospital-based wound center financially viable: the Georgetown University Hospital model

As the medical need and expenditure for chronic wound care have increased markedly over the past decade, wound centers have grown exponentially throughout the country. They can be community-based or hospital-based, and in either case, can be run by the facility or by a national chain. The wound center's viability is dependent on generated revenue, and its clinical effectiveness is based on a multidisciplinary approach to wound care. By incorporating the wound center into an existing hospital system, one can take advantage of the hospital's resources to effectively treat the more complex patients. Additionally, by focusing on limb salvage, the hospital attracts the critical limb ischemia and other complex patients that often require inpatient admission. We examined the Georgetown University Hospital Center for Wound Healing performance over the first 6 years of operation. Since opening the wound center in 1999, the number of outpatient visits has doubled, the wound care inpatient census has doubled, and the operative cases have increased 3-fold. Because the outpatient segment of the wound center can at best cover its direct cost, it cannot financially justify its existence. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) can increase the revenue to the point where the indirect costs are covered as well and the wound center can be revenue neutral. Due to the medical complexity of limb salvage patients, the inpatient collections are much higher than those of the outpatient wound center and therefore can serve as justification for the latter's financial viability. More importantly, with the wound center in place, the hospital can provide the local/regional community with a comprehensive service that can effectively treat the most challenging wounds. The success is built on a multidisciplinary team approach, use of evidence-based treatment protocols, efficient clinical structure, and a supportive hospital system. The beneficiaries include the patient with a healed wound, the physician with a gratifying practice, the health care system with lower costs, and the hospital with a steady influx of complex patients.