Chronic wounds pose serious health consequences if not properly treated, potentially causing limb loss. Wound infections impede treatment efforts, but current methods of wound cleaning are messy and limited. More controlled methods of keeping wounds sanitary are in demand. Northwestern researchers have developed a single-use, cup-like device for performing pulse lavage irrigation on a range of chronic and acute wounds such as pressure sores, diabetic wounds, venous stasis ulcers, lymphedema, peripheral vascular disease, non-healing surgical wounds, burn wounds, and others. This system reduces bacterial counts in deep wounds, offering quicker healing, which is an improvement over other bedside wound therapies that are limited to non-infected and non-necrotic superficial wounds. The device can be used bedside in the hospital by non-physicians and at home with outpatient follow-up, reducing the need for operative irrigation and lengthy hospital stays, and thus decreasing costs and personnel time.