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Morristown Hamblen Healthcare System held an open house of its Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center Thursday afternoon.

The hospital opened its doors to its wound clinic for local physicians and community members to tour its facility and ask questions about its Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.

“We were excited for healthcare providers and the community to have the opportunity to learn more about how our center can help those with non-healing wounds and meet our staff, including our newest panel provider,” explains Michelle Bailey, Area Program Director. Bailey goes on to say “I loved being able to meet the community and working together to help heal those in need of comprehensive wound care services.”

The Morristown-Hamblen Wound Care and Hyperbaric Center treats patients with non-healing wounds that require an advanced level of care.

Wounds typically treated at the center include those that are chronic and especially difficult to heal, such as diabetic, venous and pressure ulcers. The center can even treat internal injuries, including the late effects of radiation, osteomyelitis and crush injuries.

The hospital is the only location in the city that can administer the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy that stimulates the formation of new blood vessels and improves the flow of oxygen into tissues.

Jeff Browder, Regional Director of Restorix Health, explained the history of the therapy.

“Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy was originally used for people who were scuba diving because it helps with decompression,” he said. “When they get down to a certain depth the nitrogen build up in our bodies and that’s not a good thing.

“So HBO is a way to bring them up slower, but what it does it causes at the microvascular it generates and opens up a lot of arteries and veins in the vascular system and that’s how they dispel the nitrogen bubbles.”

Browder explained how there were other health benefits found in those who originally used the pressurized chamber.

“We also found that by putting them in the chambers it oxygenates the bodies and when people come out they feel so much better,” he said. “So they started using the method as a therapy for patients to help heal their wounds.”

Browder explained how the therapy works and what it looks like for patients.

“So what we do now, we put a patient in a chamber and close the door and we put them essentially below depth,” he said “It’s 100% pressurized oxygen and they breathe it in and it causes microvascularization of all these tiny blood vessels and it helps heal their wounds”

“All they feel while in the chamber is similar to when you are on an airplane and you go up and down and you feel that pressure, that is what they feel when going through therapy.

“Patients come in five days a week for a minimum of six weeks and they are in the chamber for three hours from start to finish so it’s a big patient commitment but at the end of the day it’s so beneficial to them.”

He explained what patients use the therapy and how it helps heal more than just wounds.

“It is a very prominent therapy for a lot of our wound patients, patients who have radiation injuries and patients who have gangrene,” he said. “It helps patients who have taken radiation for cancer and if they have problems from that radiation this therapy helps them grow tissue and reverse some of the complications they got for radiation injuries.”

“Results are not permanent so if they stop coming to this therapy and their wound is not healed then it could get worse again. It creates new blood vessels for a short period of time, but will go away. We are doing this until their wound heals and then after it heals they are good to go.”

The therapy has been available to patients in the area for four years and the center can see around 6 patients a day.

The center is a proud recipient of RestorixHealth’s Patient Satisfaction Award. Recipients of this award meet or exceed national patient satisfaction benchmarks over a set period of time. The center was recognized for this distinction in 2019, 2021 and, most recently, in the July-December 2022 award period.

The Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine Center is located on the fourth floor at Morristown-Hamblen Healthcare System and is open Monday-Friday, 8 AM – 4:30 PM.