SmartTRAK interviews two leaders from the Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders to discuss its aim to be the unified voice for the wound care community, ensuring quality care for all patients with chronic wounds.
SmartTRAK’s Kris Flinn discusses wound care advocacy and is joined by two leaders in the field: Marcia Nusgart, founder and CEO, and Karen Ravitz, healthcare policy advisor for the Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders. The Alliance celebrates its 25-year anniversary next year and aims to be the unified voice for the wound care community to ensure quality care for all patients with chronic wounds
To listen to the interview, click on the following video (25:54). A link to download a complete transcript of the interview is provided below.
Interview Transcript
SmartTRAK: Marcia, Karen, thank you for joining me today. If I could just start by asking you to provide some background on the Alliance and what the organization does.
Marcia Nusgart: Kris, thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be with you today. It's amazing that next year will be 25 years since we created the Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders. And the reason why we did this is we realized, as you said, that there needs to be a unified voice for wound care because there are so many different clinical associations whose members treat patients with chronic wounds. So we got the idea to be able to bring all these clinical associations in one room. And we said to them, again, many years ago, we were going to create a unified voice for wound care, what should we be focusing on; And so no surprise to you, coverage, coding, payment, wound care measures, wound care quality, research, as well as education in this area. So, sure enough, that is the basis of what we concentrate on, the reimbursement areas, and we cover a wide range of issues.
And Karen, who is our policy expert on all of this, works with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as do I, the Food and Drug Administration, Capitol Hill, all the regulatory agencies, as well as on Capitol Hill to address any of those particular policies that we submit comments on. We also have work groups that address so many different issues, whether it’s cellular and tissue-based products for skin wounds, as well as imaging, surgical dressings, FDA regulatory issues, government affairs issues, a whole wide range of product sectors. Our membership ranges from those various clinical associations I just mentioned, whether it’s the American Podiatric Medical Association, the Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurses Association, as well as non-clinical associations, business entities, wound care clinics, provider groups, as well as various other professional services firms such as you, because you are a member of the Alliance also. So that pretty much sums up what we do. I didn’t know whether Karen wanted to mention something about that.
Karen Ravitz: I just would mention one last thing is that when we are dealing with policy-related issues, when there is a unified voice on an issue, whether it’s legislative or regulatory, you are more apt to have success. So any fracture in messaging allows for the government to do what they want to do, and that is not in the best interest of the wound care community. So again, having a unified, respectable voice is very important in achieving policy objectives.
MN: That is so true. That is so true.
So the Alliance covers a range of different clinical areas. Are you able to talk about some of the work groups which the Alliance undertakes work for?
MN: Thank you, Kris. Yes, we do have a variety of work groups that set up work plans that we follow. And it is a broad range of them, whether it’s addressing ...
Click the button below to download and read the full transcript of SmartTRAK Wound GM Kris Flinn’s interview with Marcia Nusgart, founder and CEO of the Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders, and the Alliance's healthcare policy advisor Karen Ravitz. 
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