Prevention of Pressure Ulcers (PUs) in the Surgical Patient

Prevention of Pressure Ulcers (PUs) in the Surgical Patient

TOPIC:   Joint Commission is mandating keeping patients safe.  The elimination of pressure ulcers after admission to a healthcare facility is one of their initiatives. All acute areas need to be reviewed for adequacy in prevention of pressure ulcers. There are many susceptible times that patients are put at increased risk for developing PUs, especially older adult patients.  One area of concern is the operating room (OR).  Many patients undergoing surgery have numerous risk factors that can result in PUs. Even though there is an infinite amount of information available to educate and implement policies, procedures, protocols, and nursing care plans among providers in the health care industry to decrease the amount of healthcare associated ulcers, the prevalence and incidence of PUs continues to climb. PURPOSE:  The purpose of this paper is not only to review PUs and pressure redistribution in the OR setting.  Additional information will be given addressing the effectiveness of the pressure redistribution and prevention of ulcers that occur during surgical procedures.  OBJECTIVES:  To achieve an increase in best practices for pressure ulcer prevention and decrease the incidence in the surgical patient. OUTCOMES: Classifying all surgical patients as “at risk” for PU development is an appropriate preoperative intervention to successfully help reduce the incidence of possible PU development. Better education to increase the competency of surgical staff members and to help develop and implement policies and procedures, where needed, to decrease the vulnerability for PU development, improve patient comfort, decrease patient mortality, and lower health care costs with regards to PUs.