Benefits
The top 10 benefits of registering with the CAWC Institute
- Our educational programs are recognized by professional organizations, associations and governments (eg. Canadian Nurses Association, RNAO, Health Canada, First Nations).
- CAWC Institute is delivered by nationally recognized, interprofessional wound care faculty trained in adult learning principles and using recognized, evidence-based guidelines.
- Our programs are designed to enhance and support interprofessional clinical practice.
- We support lifelong learning with a focus on knowledge, skill and attitude development for all levels of practitioners from basic to advanced.
- We connect the best available evidence with regional and community based practices in a collaborative teaching method involving national wound experts and regional wound care leaders.
- We provide unbiased, evidence based information and tools that support clinicians in their efforts to identify the best care and treatment for their patients.
- We review, assess and evaluate all our programs to ensure that the knowledge and skills provided by the CAWC Institute enhances clinical practice and benefits patients.
- Our focus is continually to improve the development and revision of evidence-based best practice recommendations by collaborating with our national and international wound care partners.
- The CAWC Institute provides practical support both in a workshop setting, but also through tools such as posters, quick reference guides, wound assessment and risk assessment tools and other tools
- The CAWC Institute provides you with an online portfolio to compile and maintain a complete record of your wound care educational and training activities in one location.
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
– Frank Herbert
The Canadian Association of Wound Care (CAWC) is pleased to introduce the CAWC Institute of Wound Management and Prevention (CAWC Institute), which is designed to help you expand your knowledge and attitudes regarding wound care, and develop the skills required to put this knowledge into practice.
Our mission
To improve the outcomes of persons at risk for and suffering from wounds related to acute illness and chronic disease through the delivery of nationally accessible evidence –based education for all health professionals.
Our vision
Health-care professionals will implement evidence-based practice for the appropriate management and prevention of acute and chronic wounds regardless of health care discipline or location.
Our values
All activities will be guided by the necessity to provide excellence in education via:
- Our team
- Ensure a knowledgeable and dynamic faculty and staff who are committed and enthusiast in their delivery of evidence-based information.
- Our service:
- Ensure an interprofessional and collaborative commitment to adult learning that supports evidence-based practice in wound management and prevention.
- Our partnerships:
- Set standards for education related to wound management and prevention by working with institutions, clinicians, researchers and policy makers to identify and fill gaps.
Impact of adult educational programs
Healthcare professional education
The role of the healthcare professional is changing. To keep up with this evolution, healthcare professionals must acknowledge that change!
A program entitled “Educating Future Physicians for Ontario” has acknowledged the changing role of the physician and addressed how educational programs should reflect the changes (Neufeld, 1998). The project identified eight roles attributed to medical professionals:
- Medical expert/clinician decision-maker
- Communicator
- Collaborator
- Health advocate
- Manager (“gatekeeper”)
- Learner
- Scientist/scholar
- Person
Ongoing professional education must reflect growth in these eight areas.
Other healthcare professionals are trained through a body of knowledge specific to their discipline. Their roles include the provision of many therapeutic interventions; however, due to the dynamic nature of client-centred care, the healthcare professional may adopt many simultaneous roles. The key components of their roles are described in the following framework for practice:
Assessor: Gathers relevant data. This process relies on professional discretion to independently organize and coordinate care.
Facilitator: Promotes communication and collaboration among team members that includes clients, families, physicians and other parties involved in order to maximize the wound-specific outcome.
Planner: Establishes a plan of care based on the assessed client and wound care needs. Through a collaborative process between client and provider, mutual goals are agreed upon, optimizing the client’s state of wellness while rationalizing the use of available resources.
Advocate: Balances advocacy between the client and the healthcare system. Supports and educates the client to become empowered and self-reliant in optimal wellness to support wound healing.
Evaluator: Initiates and modifies the plan of care by evaluating the change in client wound status and/or program resources. All information related to the current plan is documented appropriately, evaluated objectively and critically to identify trends, and clarified to determine realistic goals and seek potential alternatives.
How do we learn and what do we need to learn?
As healthcare professionals, do we have a clear vision of our career and a dynamic, strategic plan for learning? Do we pursue change and embrace it or do we struggle against it? How can we know?
Healthcare professionals gradually “take for granted” aspects of their practice that initially preoccupied them and become concerned about and reflect upon wider matters (Dreyfus and Dreyfus, 1986). This “taking-for-granted on the one hand” and “reflection on the other hand” offers a view of how reflection-on-action (learning from experience) deepens in the course of a career (Atherton, 2002).
Reflective practice guides the expert practitioner, while the novice or advanced beginner still values the scientific approach for the rules and direction it supplies (Heath, 1998). Heath (1998) presents a model of practice that encompasses several theories (Heath, 1998) that reflect the knowledge and skill development of the expert practitioner:
Figure 1: Theory Integration via Reflective Practice (adapted from Heath, 1998)