San Diego area HME providers specializing in wound care could potentially have a new referral partner. The Tri-City Medical Center in Vista, Calif. began accepting patients at its newly opened Center for Wound Care and Hyberbaric Medicine.

The North San Diego County center, one of the few centers using hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat patients with non-healing wounds, was opened in response to a national increase of patients with difficult-to-heal wounds. This need is also felt at the local level, in San Diego, according to the center.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy uses pressurized chambers to deliver high volumes of oxygen to provide tissues with 100 percent oxygen — rather than the 21 percent  in the air we typically breathe — to help kill germs and speed healing.

For San Diego-area HME providers, the center could create new opportunities to offer supporting wound care services and products to patients of the center.

“By combining physician specialists with specialized nurses, allied health personnel and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, we will be able to provide the entire spectrum of advanced sound care,” said Paula Haydu, MD, a certified wound specialist and the center’s medical director for wound care.