Katia Augusta Xavier Furtado Prof Dr

Kátia Furtado (PhD) is a Portuguese nurse, researcher and educator with more than three decades of clinical practice and a recognised international voice in wound care and tissue viability. She holds a PhD in Nursing from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (2024, Summa Cum Laude), is a Specialist Nurse in Community and Public Health Nursing, and completed postgraduate training in Tissue Viability and Wound Care at Thames Valley University, London. The Portuguese Nurses' Order has certified her advanced competences in both Tissue Viability and Wounds and Clinical Supervision. Since 2010 she has led the Wound Care Unit at the Unidade Local de Saúde do Alto Alentejo, and she serves as regional wound-care advisor to Portugal's National Network for Integrated Continuing Care (RNCCI), where she coordinates a multidisciplinary programme on pressure ulcer prevention and treatment. She is Invited Adjunct Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre and a long-standing lecturer on postgraduate wound programmes at the University of Évora and other Portuguese institutions. A co-founder and President of ELCOS – Sociedade Portuguesa de Feridas since 2010, and co-founder of SILAUHE, she led the national implementation of the Braden Scale in Portugal and contributes to national clinical guidelines on pressure ulcers and the diabetic foot for the Directorate-General of Health. Her research, published in the International Wound Journal, Journal of Clinical Medicine and Healthcare, focuses on pressure ulcer epidemiology, nursing practice environments and quality of care in long-term settings. She received the Journal of Wound Care Award (2024) and the MESI Health Impact Award (2026).