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Bedside procedures

How to clean a wound and change a dressing

Other platforms explain it with text and video. In Making Synapses you practice it on the patient.

Nursing (NCLEX)EMS (NREMT)
Practice it in VR with Blocky

Each dressing change is also an assessment. Describe the wound the same way every time so changes are clear.

Step by step

  1. Prepare

    Check the order, give pain relief if needed, clean your hands, introduce yourself, confirm the patient and get consent. [1]

  2. Remove the old dressing

    Clean gloves. Peel toward the wound and look at the drainage on it. Discard, remove gloves, clean your hands. [1]

  3. Assess the wound

    Location, size in cm (length, width, depth), wound bed (red, yellow, black), drainage type and amount, odor, edges and surrounding skin. [1]

  4. Look for infection

    Spreading redness, warmth, swelling, pus, new pain or fever. [1]

  5. Clean

    New gloves. Normal saline from the cleanest area to the dirtiest; for an incision, along the line, then beside it. [1]

  6. New dressing

    Keep the wound bed moist and the skin around it dry. Date and initial the dressing. [1]

  7. Record

    Write the description and report signs of infection. [1]

Common errors

Practice it in Making Synapses

In Making Synapses you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.

Making Synapses cases that train this skill

30 Making Synapses cases train this skill: open the case library

Sources

  1. Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College) (CC BY 4.0)

Steps adapted from Open RN, Nursing Skills 2e (Chippewa Valley Technical College), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Making Synapses is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.