2005 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care | |
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Informational/Educational Report
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Incidence of pressure ulcers in acute care vs. long-term care: what the data shows! Scott M. Bolhack, MD, CMD, FACP, Shirley Grant, LPN, Karen Lou Kennedy-Evans, RN, CS, FNP, TLC HealthCare Companies and Devon Gables Healthcare Center, Tucson AZ Problem. Regulatory agencies tightly monitor Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs). Pressure ulcers (PUs) are a critical part of that review. A local SNF was concerned about the number of patients admitted with PUs from hospitals. Methodology. The facility assessed each patient’s skin condition upon admission, and recorded the following: name of transferring hospital, total number of admissions from each hospital, number of patients with PUs and total number of PUs. Multiple months of data was collected and compared hospital to hospital. Results. For January through September of 2004 the percentage of patients admitted to the SNF with PUs from hospitals ranged from 5.2% to 19.4%. The percentage of resident/patients who developed pressure ulcer(s) in the SNF for the same period based on average daily census ranged from 0.77% to 3.86% Conclusion. Patients requiring long-term nursing care and /or post hospital care for nursing-rehabilitation services are less likely to develop pressure ulcers in SNFs than in hospitals. This study highlights the need for SNFs to perform careful assessments at the time of admission to help delineate admission-related ulcers from those acquired in the facility. Sharing this data with hospitals may encourage hospitals to enhance their PU quality improvement programs. |
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