Pressure Ulcers Risk Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Pressure Ulcers Risk Management - Essay Example Apart from being static in a position there are some other reasons responsible for this like fragility of skin, chronic problems like diabetes, lack of nourishment, mental disability, incontinence or old age. Pressure ulcer management has definitely changed dramatically over the last 3 decades or so. Earlier, pressure ulcers did not receive much attention and they were treated with betadine, maalox, heat lamps and there were no low air loss beds. After the works of Braden and Bergstrom, pressure ulcers began to receive the attention deserved. Still lot of work is yet to be done to get the word out. That is why this project needs to be taken up. In year 2000-2002, there were 474,692 new cases of pressure ulcer( Patient safety in American Hospitals, Health Grades 2004) it is about 0.17% incidence rate. Out of this 13.13% of pressure ulcer cases resulted in death. 34,320 deaths due to pressure ulcer were attributable to patient safety. It also has a cost factor to it. In the year 200-2002 in US, $2,574.02 million were spent to treat pressure ulcers. At the same time $2.57 were spent to prevent pressure ulcer. (WD) Regulatory agencies such as CMS, JCAHO & the State Departments of Health consider pressure ulcers to be preventable and so nosocomial pressure ulcers are the fault of the facility or agency in which they occur. Nursing Homes receive citations, fines and even criminal charges for these types of wounds. Patients sue facilities and nurses and win. This is such a hot topic that all the agencies that deal with this problem are busy updating information, preventative measures and heightened awareness. If a streamlined process can be developed that addresses education and a nursing focused approach, perhaps we will see a drop in pressure ulcers. The National Pressure Ulcer Advisor Panel (NPUAP) has recently (Feb 2007) released some updates. The staging system was updated to both clarify the four stages AND name deep tissue injury into the staging system. They have also added the definition of pressure redistribution to replace the old pressure reduction and pressure relief definitions. Thi s was mainly due to new findings associated with shearing injuries.CMS is changing reimbursement on nosocomial pressure ulcers. Basically, CMS will reimburse to acute care facilities for pressure ulcers if the patient was admitted with the pressure ulcer, but if it is a nosocomial pressure ulcer then CMS will not pay. JCAHO has added pressure ulcers to the 2008 National Patient Safety Goal list for long term care:- "Goal 14 Prevent health care-associated pressure ulcers (decubitus ulcers). 14A Assess and periodically reassess each resident's risk for developing a pressure ulcer (decubitus ulcer) and take action to address any identified risks." Braden scale Braden Scale is a clinically validated tool used in the medical profession to get a reliable score of the risk level for developing pressure ulcers in a patient. With its help even those nurses who do not have uniform level of experience and capacity of judgment, can have consistency in identifying the risk level of the patient. This also helps them to monitor their patient care in a busy schedule. It also helps them to pay appropriate attention to the six specific risk factors.