Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story

In preparation for the October 2008 ruling for  nonreimburseable "Hospital Acquired Conditions" under the new CMS guidelines, our corporate structure which includes 3 hospitals, took a proactive stance on making changes that would positively effect our facility acquired pressure ulcer prevalence rates. Bringing down the (house) hospital's FA pressure ulcer prevalence rates is exactly what we did. One of our areas that needed improvement centered around our support surfaces. In our patient population, we were faced with a significant amount of patients that were elderly with co-mobidities that were indicators for pressure ulcers and a high incidence of low Braden Risk Assessment scores. We were challenged with choosing a pressure redistribution surface that would not only provide positive clinical outcomes in the protection of skin integrity for our current patient population, but also would be cost effective. During these trying economic times, choosing a cost effective support surface is a key component in the selection process. It was also important for us not to jeopardize patient comfort or the high quality we would expect of the therapuetic mattress. Because new technology creates a complex task in examining support surfaces, we needed to find one that would accomodate our current hospital frames and serve multiple functions. These goals were to decrease friction/shear effects, redistributing pressure, meeting all hospital standards for quality and safety, providing optimal comfort, providing stability to reduce falls when egressing out of the bed, and easy and durable for cleanup and storage. After making our decision with the purchase of our nonpowered reactive pressure redistribution surfaces as our standard hospital mattress, we have shown success by reducing our facility acquired pressure ulcer prevalence rates over the last 3 years.