Better skin health is good policy, and smart economics

Skin is the largest organ in the human body.

Your skin is a vital barrier against infection, injury, and environmental threats. But despite its role in keeping us healthy, skin integrity is often overlooked in healthcare planning. 

Canada is ill equipped to address the needs of Canadians at risk for — or with — wounds, particularly those with the types of wounds that are difficult to heal and extremely costly to treat. 

Canada spends more than $12 billion on wound care every year.

The lifetime risk of developing a wound is significant, particularly among older adults and those with diabetes and other chronic conditions. When wounds occur — whether in the form of diabetic foot ulcers, pressure injuries, or venous leg ulcers — they place an enormous burden on people and healthcare systems.

The direct costs include hospital stays, advanced wound care products, healthcare provider fees, and long-term treatment expenses. However, the financial burden of wounds extends beyond these costs.

Indirect costs — such as lost productivity due to disability, the burden placed on family caregivers, and the social cost of diminished quality of life — are rarely included in financial estimates. 

People with slow-to-heal or non-healing wounds often experience mobility restrictions that prevent them from working, reducing workforce participation and leading to financial strain on households.

Caregivers, typically family members, may also be forced to reduce their working hours or leave their jobs entirely to provide necessary wound care at home. In long-term care settings, inadequate wound prevention and management increase staff workload, siphoning scarce staff time and resources.

The prevention and management of wounds align directly with cost reduction and improved health outcomes. 

The Best Practice Recommendations for Skin Health and Wound Management 2025 by Wounds Canada provides a clear, evidence-based framework to help care providers reduce wound prevalence, improve patient outcomes, and lower healthcare costs. 

Through the prioritization of prevention, patients experience improved quality of life, faster recovery times, and fewer hospitalizations.

Emphasis on prevention also mitigates financial strain on healthcare institutions. Hospital-acquired pressure injuries alone cost the healthcare system millions annually — costs that could be avoided with standardized prevention strategies. 

By integrating best practices into clinical settings, healthcare institutions can reduce wound-related hospitalizations, lower readmission rates, and improve workflow efficiency for frontline healthcare workers.

Additionally, regulated and unregulated health-care  providers often lack access to standardized wound care training. Addressing this requires integrating wound prevention best practice education — such as the programming offered by Wounds Canada — into medical and nursing curricula and ongoing professional development.

The substantial financial and human costs of wounds, particularly hard-to-heal wounds, demand action. 

Canada must invest in a national strategy to prioritize wound prevention and management. Key steps include allocating funding for prevention programs, expanding research funding for new wound care solutions, standardizing national wound care guidelines, funding educational programs for health care providers and integrating wound prevention into Continuous Quality Improvement. 

Prioritizing skin health is not only a medical necessity, it’s a financial imperative. 

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Mariam Botros is the CEO of Wounds Canada.