Moist Wound Dressings and Pressure Relieving Surfaces : Mechanisms, Materials and a Review of Some Cost-Effectiveness Findings

This paper is intended to provide background to guide future work in establishing the cost-effectiveness of modern wound care practices. An outline of the rationale, indications and effectiveness is given for two aspects of the total wound care protocol: pressure relief and moist wound dressings. Against this background of mechanisms and materials for wound healing, methodology employed in reported cost-effectiveness studies is appraised with a view to identifying a set of rigorous studies that might accurately reflect the value of adopting alternative wound care methods as part of a standard treatment protocol. Several methodological shortcomings were identified in the studies reviewed. Moreover, these studies generally fell well short of the rigorous application of CEA methods necessary to inform questions of resource allocation at the societal level. Nonetheless, reviewed findings provide a guide to the magnitude of key factors influencing the cost-effectiveness of pressure relieving surfaces and moist wound healing. Further, modelling cost-effectiveness around reviewed findings could well produce robust estimates of C/E suitable to guide resource allocation