William H. Tettelbach
MD, FACP, FIDSA, FUHM, MAPWCA, CWSP
Chief Medical Officer | RestorixHealth
At RestorixHealth, we believe our team members are some of our biggest assets in achieving our mission of restoring health and improving the quality of life — and access to care — for patients with wounds. Our Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. William H. Tettelbach, MD, FACP, FIDSA, FUHM, MAPWCA, CWSP, is especially valuable to our clinical operations, offering guidance and support to the operations team, panel providers and hospital leadership and overseeing the evaluation of new treatment modalities and medical research initiatives.
Dr. Tettelbach is a certified wound specialist who is actively board certified in Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine with formal training in Biomedical Informatics. He comes to RestorixHealth from HCA Healthcare, where he served as the Executive Medical Director, Wound & Hyperbaric Medicine Services for the MountainStar Division (Alaska, Idaho, Utah). His prior experience includes a number of executive leadership roles, including CMO, Medical Affairs and Wound & Surgical Recovery for MiMedx Group, Inc., Founder and Executive System Medical Director of Intermountain Health’s Wound and Hyperbaric Medicine Service Line and CMO for On-Site Advanced Care, the largest mobile wound care provider in Utah.
Dr. Tettelbach lends his expertise to numerous professional societies (e.g., current president of the American Professional Wound Care Association (APWCA)), committees and associations and has authored numerous research articles and book chapters. As an industry leader, he is a sought-after author and presenter both domestically and internationally, a patent holder and a two-time award winner from the Journal of Wound Care Awards.
Q How has wound care advanced over the past two decades?
A When RestorixHealth first started, there was no accepted standard of care for wound care. Since that time, RestorixHealth has progressed and developed our 7 Steps of Wound Management, which is the accepted standard of care for all our providers in all our centers. In fact, these 7 Steps of Wound Management helped to elevate today’s standard of care for all wound care providers to follow. We can measure and monitor wound care outcomes using our proprietary EMR and over the years have consistently driven improvement in patient care.
Q What is RestorixHealth’s commitment to offering advanced wound care therapies, like cellular, acellular and matrix-like products (CAMPs)?
A RestorixHealth is a wound care and hyperbaric medicine solutions company committed to providing evidence-based adjunct technologies that are clinically proven to benefit patients suffering with hard-to-heal wounds that have been refractory to conservative therapy. CAMPs, when used concurrently with RestorixHealth’s 7 Steps of Wound Management, has the ability to reduce inflammation, support the growth of granulation tissue, and promote the migration of epithelial cells across the extracellular matrix. As a result, the stalled trajectory of the healing cascade, typically seen in patients with chronic wounds, can be re-established towards closure. Adjunctive CAMP therapy can also alleviate pain and decrease fluid loss, risk of infection, amputation rates and associated mortality rates1,2,3, all important factors in improving the quality of life of our patients.
Q What is the advantage to a hospital in partnering with RestorixHealth?
A Wound care is a multi-faceted specialty with many complexities requiring continuous guidance. Given all the resources, which in many instances are limited, required to manage the numerous established clinical programs and service lines within the hospital, it can be difficult for a hospital to focus energy on just one highly specialized department. When you partner with RestorixHealth, the success of the wound center is our sole focus. RestorixHealth has developed a high level of expertise in operating a successful, advanced wound center, and their turn-key solution for wound center management takes care of every administrative, operational, and clinical detail to ensure the center is operating at the highest level.
Another reason we’ve been so successful is that we provide flexible contracting options, including a performance-based option where RestorixHealth does not get paid unless and until the hospital gets paid. This means RestorixHealth is only successful when the wound program is successful.
Q What makes RestorixHealth unique?
A RestorixHealth takes a multidisciplinary team approach, bringing a panel of local providers who work in our centers with different areas of expertise, including vascular, surgical and podiatry. Another characteristic that sets us apart is maintaining flexibility. We look at our hospital client’s needs and pivot to satisfy them rather than take a cookie-cutter approach. We make it very clear to the hospital that it’s not our program — all of our wound centers are branded with the hospital name; RestorixHealth is the partner working in the background to ensure success in the delivery of patient care. We also believe in the importance of personal relationships. We have a regional infrastructure that mimics our national infrastructure. Our people serving a wound center are regional, so they can be there quickly. The regional team is part of the community they serve.
References:
- Lavery LA, Armstrong DG, Wunderlich RP et al. Risk factors for foot infections in individuals with diabetes. Diabetes Care 2006; 29(6):1288–1293. https://doi.org/10.2337/dc05-2425
- Padula WV, Ramanathan S, Cohen BG et al. Comparative effectiveness of placental allografts in the treatment of diabetic lower extremity ulcers and venous leg ulcers in U.S. Medicare beneficiaries: a retrospective observational cohort study using real-world evidence. Adv Wound Care 2024. https://doi.org/10.1089/wound.2023.0143
- Halim AS, Khoo TL, Mohd Yussof SJ. Biologic and synthetic skin substitutes: an overview. Indian J Plast Surg 2010; 43(Suppl): S23–S28