A method is provided for assessing and documenting wound and skin conditions, and includes an automatically triggered alerting mechanism that is activated when a treatment is initiated that deviates or is a variation from an expected or standard treatment, under the current circumstances, and given previously gathered wound and skin condition patient information, and a method for triggering that alerting mechanism. In one embodiment the method includes the steps of initial patient care data gathering, clinical pathway identification and implementation, variance assessment and triggering, and issuance of variance cautions that are trigger during variance assessment and triggering, and are related to skin and wound care decisions made by healthcare professionals involved in a patient's care.