Are we any further forward with wound care as a clinical specialty?

As we close out the first half of the second decade of the 21st century are we really any further forward on our quest for the creation and recognition of wound prevention and treatment as a clinical specialty? At the beginning of this decade our treatment armoury saw the addition of diagnostics. But have we truly embraced them as part of our approach, not really. Two national initiatives, Australia and Wales, focused on wound care grow from strength to strength. They are making impact locally but the rest of the world seems to have a wait-and-see mentality. In the past 5 years we haven’t really moved much along the evolutionary path to specialization. In today’s cash strapped health care environments we really need to be doing better. The most difficult question remains around governmental engagement and having the data to prove value or benefit. Data is a valuable asset in this journey. Many wound carers collect data on a local or at best regional basis. As a collective, however, we are not good at sharing or pooling this data. We preach a multi-disciplinary approach but are over-protective of local information that may be of benefit to others. Sometimes this is a system issue rather than an individual issue. The main question to be answered is how can we break down some of these barriers to help each other help those in need? Can we make the second half of this decade more impactful? How can we drive government engagement? How can we convince those who can make and drive change? We need to become more active in the second half of the second decade of the 21st century. On that note, we wish all of our readers a happy holiday season and a very prosperous new year and second half of this decade.