The Press Enterprise - Inland hospitals are adding hyperbaric oxygen chambers as the number of Inland patients with slow-healing wounds rises and doctors increasingly consider the treatment successful. The Inland Empire has a high rate of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases that lead to chronic wounds that need healing, said Jack Ivie, the chief operating officer at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, which opened its Wound Healing Center on Aug. 17 with two beds. Increasing the atmospheric pressure inside a hyperbaric chamber helps deliver an intensified level of oxygen to the wound. This combined result speeds the growth of scar tissue and healing, said Dr. Reuben Osorio, medical director of the Wound Healing Center.
In March, Corona Regional Medical Center put in two chambers at its wound care center. Lisa Toy, director of the wound care center, said the community has a large number of seniors with diabetes.
Dr. Michael Chin, the wound care center's medical director, said hyperbaric oxygen therapy was once used in limited situations, such as treating deep-sea diving injuries. But over the past 20 years, he said, it has proven to be successful for healing chronic wounds.
Without hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a lot of patients end up with amputations, Chin said.
The Paul Bangasser Wound Care Center at the Redlands Community Hospital has four chambers, up three from the first one installed in 1986.
Doctors have become more accepting of the technology's effectiveness, and the number of patients with diabetes and complicated cases of wound management has grown, said Leif Erickson, the hospital's director of cardiopulmonary services.
A lot of these patients have been through other regimens without success, Erickson said.
St. Bernardine's invested in the technology at the urging of its medical staff, Ivie said.
Loma Linda University Medical Center has four beds and has used the treatment since the early 1990s, a spokesman said.
Riverside Community Hospital does not currently plan to add hyperbaric chambers, a spokesman said.
In Colton, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center's wound-care clinic has two chambers and has been using them since 2003.
EASY ON PATIENTS
At St. Bernardine's on North Waterman Avenue, San Bernardino resident Charles McMullen has found a painless and effective way to heal a complicated bone infection in his left foot without stepping into a hospital.
McMullen, 51, who has diabetes and dislikes hospitals, is getting hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
They know you on a personal basis here and cater to your needs, he said. "You come here and you go about your business afterward. It's much less disruptive to your life."
All McMullen has to do is recline in a clear 7-foot-long tube for about two hours a day, for about six weeks of therapy. He's not claustrophobic and describes the setup as being in a jet plane. McMullen usually naps during the therapy but a TV is available.
Inside the chamber, McMullen is breathing 100 percent oxygen at an increased atmospheric pressure at about twice the normal level.
About 30 percent of the center's patients undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy, said Osorio, the medical director. These are typically people with diabetes and chronic wounds that are not healing, cancer patients with radiation injuries and patients with bone infections that haven't responded to antibiotics.
The center uses National Healing Corp.'s expertise, guidelines and protocols for hyperbaric oxygen therapy and wound care. The wound care management company has an 86 percent healing rate for all wounds, and 92 percent of that happens in the first 12 to 16 weeks, said Jan Spann, the center's program director.
Those statistics are meaningful for the population that St. Bernardine hospital serves, Spann said. About 60 percent of patients are Hispanics, African-Americans and Native Americans, and diabetes affects these populations at higher rates, she said.
If we can stop the amputation or at least the second one, and save a leg, we can save a life, Spann said.
But the cost of the technology, facilities, a qualified medical team and training can deter rapid expansion, said Chin, the Corona medical director. Corona's wound care center has five doctors and St. Bernardine's has eight, including four surgeons, and a podiatrist is expected to join soon.
The 3,500-square-foot parcel for St. Bernardine's wound care center was donated by the late Dr. Irving Allen, and construction cost $1.5 million, Ivie said. The two chambers would each cost about $250,000 to buy but they're being leased from National Healing Corp. Lease cost was not available.
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