Ensuring Quality Care in the COVID-19 Era: Applying the Donabedian Model to Tertiary Wound Care Center Practices

• Published in: Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association Vol. 113; no. 2
• Main Authors: Evans, Karen K, Bekeny, Jenna C, Zolper, Elizabeth G, Steinberg, John S, Atves, Jayson N, Benedict, Carol Deane, Fan, Kenneth L, Akbari, Cameron M, Attinger, Christopher E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-03-2023
• Subjects: COVID-19; Humans; Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; Quality of Health Care
• ISSN: 8750-7315; 1930-8264
• DOI: 10.7547/20-080

The coronavirus disease of 2019 pandemic has disrupted health care, with its far-reaching effects seeping into chronic disease evaluation and treatment. Our tertiary wound care center was specially designed to deliver the highest quality care to wounded patients. Before the pandemic, we were able to ensure rapid treatment by means of validated protocols delivered by a colocalized multidisciplinary team within the hospital setting. The pandemic has disrupted our model's framework, and we have worked to adapt our workflow without sacrificing quality of care. Using the modified Donabedian model of quality assessment, we present an analysis of prepandemic and intrapandemic characteristics of our center. In this way, we hope other providers can use this framework for identifying evolving problems within their practice so that quality care can continue to be delivered to all patients.