Developing wound care centers of excellence in Haiti through virtual clustering

The incidence of diabetes mellitus in Haiti is similar to that of the United States. Pedal complications, including vascular disease, neuropathy, and wounds are seen clinically, but not all facilities have access to knowledge and educational resources to care for these patients appropriately. Traditional wound care centers do not exist in Haiti as they do in the US, however, one facility does have a wound care center, which will be used as a model for the development of other wound care centers of excellence throughout Haiti. A phenomenon in the business world known as clustering is where organizations in the same industry gather in close geographic proximity to benefit from all the expertise and skilled workers in the field to increase productivity. Clustering will be the underlying theme of this project. With the geographic distribution of the potential wound care centers of excellence in Haiti, close physical proximity will not be feasible, thus we will attempt to cluster virtually.  In working with information technology and systems team members, we are proposing a method of knowledge and educational resource transfer via telecommunication between facilities to create a virtual clustering phenomenon.