The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) has created a center dedicated to the treatment of complex wounds. A wound center in our paradigm is by definition multi-disciplinary in scope, with the primary treating service being reconstructive microsurgery, working closely with nursing and social work at the center together with various dedicated medical specialty consultants. We have modeled our center after those centers designed specifically to treat patient populations with diabetes or cardiovascular illnesses.

Complex wound patients in our model are made up of a DRG grouping that we have validated at our institution to correspond to certain key ICD-9 and CPT codes. These codes were generated at the time of our definitive treatment. The focal point of this center is a dedicated inpatient unit and specialty clinic. The objective of the center is to create a centralized point of service for all complex wound patients in the state of Mississippi, and to promote research and education in the care of these patients. We present our data on the relative volume of complex wound patients in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 academic years seen at UMC versus the other major revenue (or cost) centers by DRG grouping i.e. Cardiovascular, Cancer etc.

For the 1999 academic year, patient admissions with complex wound DRG’s accounted for 1,142 patients. This represented 5.2 percent of that year’s total 22,100 admissions. Patients admitted with illnesses assigned cardiovascular disease or cancer DRG’s totaled 6.7 and 9.0 percent, respectively, of total admissions for the same year. Patient admissions with complex wound DRG’s for the following academic year, July 1, 2000 – June 30, 2001, numbered 1,173. This represented 4.3 percent of that year’s total 27,470 admissions. Cardiovascular admissions were 7.8 percent while those admitted with cancer related DRG’s represented 5.5 percent of the total admissions for the same year.

Our model is described along with the process used to validate it. We have used this method to identify a patient population not previously defined. Its magnitude is comparable to patient populations of cardiovascular and cancer admissions at our institution. We plan to study this population and its outcomes within the infrastructure of our specialty center.