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will be held at this year’s EWMA Conference in Madrid.
The symposium is a collaborative initiative between the Veterinary
Wound Healing Association and EWMA who share the
goal of promoting education and research into the scientific
basis and clinical management of wounds. The objective of the
symposium is to provide a unique platform from which scientists
and other experts in the veterinary and human wound
management disciplines, as well as public health professionals,
can share knowledge, identify interfaces and build the capacity
to draw on the synergies.
EWMA’s EU Advocacy activities related to
antimicrobial resistance
Even within the European Union, scientific policies on the use
of antimicrobial agents vary greatly and result in diverse practices
in the local healthcare systems. Thus, both political incentives
and scientific strategies are needed to stimulate changes
in practice. To facilitate change, the EU is now calling upon
its member states to develop and ensure awareness among
public and health professionals of the threat of antimicrobial
resistance and measures available to counter the problem.
In February, EWMA responded to a public consultation
regarding the use of nanosilver. The public consultation was
launched by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee
on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR).
In the response, it was expressed that EWMA believe in the
use of non-antibiotic antimicrobial agents as the first line
of defence against topical infections and that this approach
could help save valuable antibiotics for urgent and last-resort
treatment of life-threatening conditions. However, to improve
the evidence base, large-scale clinical studies to investigate the
clinical efficacy of non-antibiotic antimicrobial agents (antiseptics),
including silver, are needed and should be encouraged
and incentivised.
EWMA is continuously contributing to the EU’s commitment
to face the challenges of antimicrobial resistance. Read
more about the advocacy activities of EWMA in this issue.
Biofilm courses
Last year, EWMA offered its first practical course on biofilm.
The cause was developed in association with the University of
Copenhagen. It was a great success; for 2014, two courses are
planned that would include even more individual hands-on
experiments in the laboratories. The biofilm courses introduce
the participants to the topic of biofilms and their huge impact
on chronic infections. Through lectures and a full day of
hands-on experiments, the participants gain an understanding
of biofilms and useable knowledge of how and why to implement
biofilms into their research or product portfolio. m
UPCOMING INITIATIVES
IN 2014 -2015
EWMA leg ulcer recommendations
The objective of this project is to produce a practical
guidance document on leg ulcer treatment, that may
be applicable within the different clinical settings for
leg ulcer treatment in Europe.
EWMA recommendations on Negative
Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT)
These recommendations will describe the available
NPWT devices (including their application and use),
the health economic aspects of use of NPWT technology
and the eHealth perspectives on the use of
NPWT technology.
Promoting Appropriate Use of Antibiotics
and Non-Antibiotic Antimicrobial Agents
in Wound Care
The goal of this project is to develop a clinical decision
support tool. The tool will facilitate appropriate
use of antibiotics and non-antibiotic antimicrobial
agents in wound management.
Wound survey Germany
The objective of the survey will be to identify the
number and type of wounds under treatment, and
provide an estimate of the resource consumption
directly attributable to wound care at an organisational
level.
This will be carried out in collaboration with the German
Wound Organisation ICW.
Home Care-Wound Care UK
A guideline for wound care within the UK home care
services will be developed, based on the recommendations
provided by the EWMA Home Care - Wound
Care document. This will be done in collaboration
with relevant organisations in the UK.
EWMA recommendations for nurse education
The recommendations will define learning outcomes
related to the different levels of education. The
objective is to eliminate inconsistencies in wound
care education within European nurse education
programmes.
EWMA Journal 2014 vol 14 no 1 89