Case Study:
Successful Diabetes Mellitus Foot Ulcer Treatment in a Rural Hospital Wound Center
CLINICIAN
Dr. Lauren McCarthy
ROLE
Podiatrist & Wound Center Medical Director
FACILITY
Jersey Community Hospital
CARE SETTING
Rural community hospital
PRIMARY USE CASE
Diabetic foot infections and venous leg ulcers
PREFERRED CONCENTRATION
Dakin’s Quarter Strength
The Setting
Dr. Lauren McCarthy is a podiatrist and the medical director of a wound center at Jersey Community Hospital. After several years in practice, she has moved much of her work into the wound care setting, where she treats complex lower-extremity wounds like diabetes mellitus foot ulcer cases, diabetic foot infections, and venous leg ulcers in a community hospital environment. On a typical day, she and her team evaluate and stage new wounds, rinse, debride, and dress chronic wounds, and put together practical treatment plans their patients can continue outside the clinic.
Within this setting, Dakin’s Solution has become a common product in her wound care approach.
Dr. McCarthy first encountered Dakin’s during residency after it was recommended in practice. Over time, it became one of the products she returns to most often, particularly in wounds with heavy exudate and signs that suggest pseudomonal infection is present—or will be soon. In her experience, Dakin’s has been especially useful for venous leg ulcers and diabetes mellitus foot ulcer wounds that appear to be progressing toward infection but don’t yet show the clear clinical signs that would require systemic antibiotic therapy.
“Dakin’s is my go-to when I see a venous leg ulcer that’s heavily exudative and has a lot of pseudomonas growth or colonization.
When it has that green kind of tinge, but isn’t necessarily infected tissue yet, Dakin’s works really well as a topical anti-pseudomonal. That’s the case I use it for the most.”
The Challenges
In Dr. McCarthy’s practice, one of the main problems with caring for complex lower-extremity wounds is managing wounds that show early signs of increased bacterial burden without moving too quickly to systemic antibiotics. In those cases, she needs an easy-to-apply topical solution she can use directly on the wound to reduce bioburden quickly without introducing antibiotics.
Just as important, the product must be safe for repeated use on patients who are seen daily or weekly—and may need to continue the treatment plan at home between visits. That means any wound care product she relies on has to be simple enough for nurses, home health staff, or family members to use consistently outside the clinic, without putting the patient’s recovery or tissue viability at risk.
A second challenge for Dr. McCarthy and the wound care center is balancing efficacy with cost. In a rural hospital setting, product choices aren’t based on results alone. The wound center also has to consider what is affordable for the facility, practical to order and store, and realistic for patients to purchase and use at home.
Inexpensive products like saline don’t do enough to address bioburden, while other wound cleansers, like Vashe, are costly to keep on hand, especially when they must be used frequently or in larger volumes.
Dr. McCarthy needed an option that’s clinically effective, accessible for her and her patients, and cost-efficient enough to support ongoing care.
The Solution
In Dr. McCarthy’s practice, quarter-strength Dakin’s is the concentration used most often. It’s the strength staff are most comfortable applying, and it serves a specific purpose in their treatment plans: to clean up the wound, quickly reduce bioburden, and support development of a healthier granular base as soon as possible.
One way Dr. McCarthy and the wound center staff use Dakin’s is in a wet-to-dry dressing. This allows the product to be applied quickly in the clinic and also supports removal of slough and other surface material during dressing changes. In wounds with heavy exudate, odor, or suspected pseudomonal burden, that combination makes it a useful option when the immediate goal is to improve the condition of the wound bed without needing systemic antibiotics.
Even for use outside the clinic, Dr. McCarthy recommends Dakin’s. Because many wound care patients are seen periodically and continue treatment at home between visits, the dressing plan has to be manageable for patients and their caregivers. Dakin’s supports continuity of care because it’s familiar to nursing staff, easy for home health nurses to apply, and simple enough for family members to help with dressing changes as needed. That ease of use is especially important in patients with diabetes mellitus foot ulcer cases and other wounds where self-care may be limited.
For Dr. McCarthy, Dakin’s role in treatment is also flexible. If a chronic or infected wound begins to show signs of improvement with Dakin’s, she continues the same Dakin’s-based approach week after week, closely monitoring the surface of the injury. Only once the wound is clean, stable, and granular does the plan move to products designed for the next stage of healing, like collagen.
Rather than relying on Dakin’s throughout the full course of healing, staff use it as an early intervention step to immediately improve wound conditions and prepare the site for the next phase of treatment.
The Results
In Dr. McCarthy’s practice, Dakin’s consistently delivers visible improvement in wounds where bioburden is affecting healing. She uses it most often in venous leg ulcers, diabetic foot infections, and other lower-extremity wounds with heavy exudate, odor, or suspected pseudomonal involvement, and the response she looks for is straightforward: a cleaner wound bed, healthier granulation tissue, less concern about surface burden, and continued healing progress from one visit to the next.
While not every wound or patient responds the same way to the same treatment, she has seen clear cases where Dakin’s jumpstarted healing between visits. In one patient in particular, other treatment approaches were failing to heal the wound—but once Dakin’s was introduced, the wound began responding almost immediately. The patient’s body seemed to respond positively to Dakin’s even when other products didn’t work.
In a similar case, a patient at the wound center returned after a week with a compression dressing treated with Dakin’s. Before removing the dressing, the team was concerned infection had set in—the odor suggested the wound had worsened. Once the dressing was removed and the wound examined, however, it looked healthy and granular without signs of decline. In fact, to their surprise, it was improving. While the week-old dressing carried a concerning odor, Dakin’s supported healing in the wound bed and the wound continued to shrink. In that case, staff continued the Dakin’s-based treatment plan until the wound reached an appropriate stage of healing.
For patients, consistent healing progress matters more than the wound’s clinical appearance. Chronic wounds can become a persistent source of discomfort, inconvenience, and embarrassment, especially when healing stretches to weeks or months. A wound care product that’s affordable, effective, easy to use, and well tolerated by healing tissue helps reduce that burden for patients—and makes Dr. McCarthy’s job that much simpler.
Key Takeaway
For Dr. McCarthy, Dakin’s remains a practical option in the management of wounds with heavy exudate, potential pseudomonal colonization, and other signs of increased surface bioburden. Its value in her practice extends beyond topical antimicrobial activity alone. In a rural wound care setting, treatment decisions also depend on whether a product is affordable, accessible, easy to apply, and realistic to continue outside the clinic. Dakin’s meets each of those requirements and serves as a more active option than saline alone.
Dr. McCarthy’s goal with Dakin’s is not to replace every other wound care product or use Dakin’s exclusively throughout the whole healing process. Instead, it serves a specific purpose at the most critical point of treatment: to clean up the wound, reduce bioburden, and support progression toward a healthier granular base. Once that goal has been met, the care plan can be adjusted to reflect the wound’s next need.
For clinicians like Dr. McCarthy who are managing diabetes mellitus foot ulcer cases, venous leg ulcers, and other chronic wounds with similar characteristics, this approach offers a practical example of where Dakin’s may fit into your routine care plans. When you need a product you can trust to work quickly, that can be applied repeatedly, and that is cost-effective, Dakin’s is the option that meets every challenge.
If you treat patients with chronic wounds marked by heavy drainage, odor, bioburden, or delayed healing, explore the full Dakin’s lineup or request a free sample to evaluate where it may fit in your wound care protocol.
