A discourse on the contributions of evidence-based medicine to wound care.

Although a healthcare system crippled by lack of resources cannot perform effectively, spending more money in an ineffective system may not lead to better outcomes. To ensure systemwide resource maximization, evidence-based medicine and guidelines that consider treatment cost-effectiveness and recommend treatment for persons with the most to gain are required. To demonstrate that increasing use of evidence-based medicine can improve wound care, the effect of informed treatment decisions on improving patient care was reviewed. A Medline and OvidSP literature search was conducted of English-language literature using the MESH terms evidence-based practice and wounds and injuries. The adoption of evidence-based medicine by individual healthcare professionals can help ensure the limited resources available are used efficiently, enhancing confidence that additional funds will translate into more people receiving better wound care and having better health. Wound care professionals are encouraged to participate in conducting well-designed and controlled clinical studies of wound dressings and to resist the routine use of new, usually more expensive, dressings in the absence of good quality clinical evidence for their benefit over existing products.