Best Practices for Antimicrobial Stewardship in Wound Management

Hosted in partnership with Essity.


Tuesday, October 28, 2025 (11:00 AM – 12:00 PM) (EDT)

Join Windy Cole, DPM, CWSP, FFPM RCPS, Director of Wound Care Research at Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine, and SIS President-Elect Lillian Kao, MD, MS, MBA, FSIS, for a comprehensive discussion on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and why it is reshaping the way clinicians approach wound care. As resistant infections make treatment more complex, antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) has become essential. This webinar highlights how applying AMS principles to wound management can help clinicians protect antibiotic effectiveness, improve infection control, and support better healing outcomes.

Key objectives include:

  • Introducing the growing challenge of AMR and its impact on patient outcomes
  • Reviewing best practices in wound management, including biofilm management and infection prevention
  • Discussing the appropriate use of antibiotic therapy and the risks of overuse
  • Examining topical antimicrobial therapies, including advanced dressing technologies
  • Presenting the essential elements of an AMS program designed to balance infection control with preservation of antibiotic efficacy

Participants will gain practical insights into how to integrate AMS principles into wound care protocols, reduce reliance on systemic antibiotics, and apply advanced dressing technologies from Leukomed® Sorbact®, Cutimed® Sorbact® and Hydrofera Blue® to help improve patient outcomes.of how pharmacy collaboration can improve patient outcomes and optimize care in the most critical settings.

Speakers

Windy Cole, DPM, CWSP, FFPM RCPS

Director of Would Care Research

Kent State University College of Podiatric Medicine

Lillian Kao, MD, MS, MBA, FSIS

Professor and Chief | McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston

President-Elect | Surgical Infection Society

Navigating the ICU: Essential Pharmacy Knowledge for Surgeons

To watch the recording, log in to the member portal and click “Resources.” (Members only)


This webinar is designed to bridge the knowledge gap for surgeons regarding the critical role of pharmaceutical expertise in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the management of multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections. We will address key practice and patient care problems by helping participants to:

  • Recognize and utilize available hospital resources that aid in antibiotic stewardship.
  • Understand the limitations of standard protocols
  • Determine which patients would benefit most from consultation with an ICU or infectious disease (ID) pharmacy team to guide their therapeutic plan.

Join us to enhance your understanding of how pharmacy collaboration can improve patient outcomes and optimize care in the most critical settings.

Panelists

Cindy Kang, PharmD | SICU Pharmacist

Wilma Chan Highland Hospital | Level 1 Trauma Center | Oakland, CA

Cindy Kang is a clinical pharmacist specialist in the Trauma and Surgical services at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA. She is from Honolulu, HI and received her Doctorate of Pharmacy degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. She completed her PGY-1 Pharmacy Residency at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and PGY-2 Cardiology Pharmacy Residency at UC Davis Medical Center. Her interests include being a part of the Pain & Addiction Committee and integrated in the UCSF East Bay General Surgery Residency education and didactic curriculum.

Eugene Liu, MD

Loma Linda University

Dr. Eugene W. Liu is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and serves as the co-director for Clinical Epidemiology and Infection Control at Loma Linda University Health. He holds an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University (2008). He completed his infectious disease fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and applied epidemiology followship as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is board-certified in Infectious Disease. His research interests include understanding the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria.

Nicholas Namias, MD

DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery

Nicholas Namias received his medical degree from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Piscataway, New Jersey. He completed his General Surgery training at the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital and stayed on for fellowships in surgical critical care and trauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. After a short stint as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Emory University, he was recruited here to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 1998 as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Co-Director of the UM/JM Burn Center. Moving through the ranks, Nick became the Chief of Burns in 2004 and was appointed Chief of Trauma in 2010. Dr. Namias is the holder of the Robert Zeppa Chair in Surgery and is an MBA graduate of the University of Miami. He is also the Director of the Ryder Trauma Center and holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Anesthesiology at the Miller School of Medicine.

Sara Parli, PharmD, BCCCP

University of Kentucky

Dr. Parli graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, earning her Doctor of Pharmacy degree. She completed her PGY1 pharmacy residency in Savannah, Ga at Memorial University Medical Center before returning to UK HealthCare to complete her PGY2 Critical Care pharmacy residency. Dr. Parli is active in clinical practice as a surgical critical care pharmacist on the Trauma and Emergency General Surgery service at UK HealthCare. She serves on several enterprise and department committees including Antimicrobial P&T Subcommittee, vaccine task force, and Committee for Pharmacy Community. Dr. Parli is engaged in the education of pharmacy students, pharmacy residents, as well as general surgery residents and surgical critical care fellows. Her current clinical research interests include surgical infectious diseases, infections and nutrition support, and VTE prophylaxis in obese trauma patients.

Moderator

Michael Cobler-Lichter, MD

University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital

Dr. Michael Cobler-Lichter grew up in Buffalo, New York, and earned his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry with a concentration in Bioinformatics from Boston College. Before medical school he worked at a health-tech startup, applying AI/ML and natural language processing to develop automated risk-adjustment solutions. He received his MD from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo and matched into General Surgery at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. Dr. Cobler-Lichter is currently a PGY-5/R3 general surgery resident, having completed a two-year research fellowship under Dr. Kenneth Proctor at the Ryder Trauma Center, during which he also earned a master’s degree in Data Science. His academic interests center on integrating advanced statistical methods and machine learning into surgical research to improve outcomes and build robust clinical decision-support tools. He will be applying to fellowships in Trauma and Surgical Critical Care.

SIS-E Webinar: International Surgical Wound Complications Advisory Panel

Click here to view the SIS-E webinar, made in partnership with ISWCAP and Essity.

Creative Approach to Reducing Worldwide Problem of Surgical Infection

Infections after surgery are the leading cause of morbidity for patients and costs to the health care system. World Health Organizations and International Surgical Societies are trying to mandate surgical hand hygiene as a top priority to decrease surgical infections.

A September 2023 landmark publication in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has a creative solution for this critical surgical problem. In collaboration with the International Surgical Infection Society and Alberta Health Services, Surgery Strategic Clinical Network, Dr. Khadaroo, Professor of Surgery, Surgeon and Critical Care Medicine Specialist at the University of Alberta, has evolved, an 8-minute video which teaches best practices of surgical hand hygiene. This is accessible to all surgery team members and all levels of medical and nursing trainees worldwide. In 2017, Dr. Khadaroo published with the Surgical Infection Society, a Randomized Control Trial demonstrating that video education significantly improves traditional education in teaching sterile surgical technique. The NEJM video and publication is being released on September 7, 2023. Dr. Khadaroo has been invited by NEJM to develop further videos in the area.


Rachel Khadaroo, MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS
Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery & Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Alberta Interim Scientific Director, Surgery Strategic Clinical Network (SCN), Alberta Health Services Certified Change Management Practitioner, Prosci

Surgery, ID and Pharmacy Alliance Key For Optimal Infection Management

A strong, interconnected relationship between the surgeon, infectious disease physician and infectious disease pharmacist is essential for optimal antibiotic stewardship and management of challenges ranging from surgical site infections and ventilator-assisted pneumonia to severe Clostridioides difficile infections and necrotizing soft tissue infections, agreed experts from each of these specialties during a session at the 2022 annual meeting of the Surgical Infection Society.

“I envision this relationship as a trio,” said James Sanders, PhD, PharmD, the antimicrobial stewardship director and an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas. “At all the institutions I’ve worked at, the surgeons have been my allies to help enforce antimicrobial stewardship principles, and without them I don’t think the programs I’ve worked with would have been as successful. I really think there needs to be interplay between the surgeon, the ID pharmacist and the ID physician, not only to promote antimicrobial stewardship but in day-to-day patient care. We’re navigating the review of patients on antimicrobials throughout the hospital, and often ensure providers reach out to surgery or the ID providers.”

AI Tool Predicts Surgical Infections, but Is Highly Site Specific

An artificial intelligence tool developed by researchers in the Netherlands proved quite accurate at predicting postoperative surgical infections in a local hospital, but less so when extended to a large academic center, emphasizing the need to retrain AI data on external data as these tools gain ground in medicine.

Despite multipronged efforts to reduce the incidence of postoperative infections, they still occur in approximately 20% of all patients. On average, these infections are not diagnosed until postoperative day 5, said Siri van der Meijden, a junior data scientist and PhD candidate at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), in the Netherlands, who presented her team’s research at the Surgical Infection Society’s 2022 annual meeting.

To be more proactive in the care of postoperative patients, Ms. van der Meijden and her colleagues developed an AI tool to estimate the risk for infection based on preoperative and interoperative variables; the tool is meant to be applied directly after surgery. Patients deemed at high risk could be closely monitored, “and ideally patients with a low risk of infection could be discharged from the hospital earlier,” she said.