Pressure Ulcers: How to Set up a Program to Help the Nursing Staff Decrease the Incidence of Pressure Ulcers in the Acute Care Setting

 

Pressure Ulcers: How to Set Up a Program to help the Nursing Staff  Decrease the Incidence of Pressure Ulcers in the Acute Care Setting.

 Background:
In 2003, our hospital had a Prevalence and Incidence of pressure ulcers of 12%.  Our corporate group wanted to decrease the prevalence of pressure ulcers in all of their hospitals.  We had mandatory education to give the staff the information on pressure ulcers, one time only.  Management knew the Wound and Ostomy Dept. did prevalence and they saw that the staff was more aware of PU, but we didn’t have a lot of buy in by management to be more proactive in prevention.  That is, until SB 1301, October 1, 2008.

 Objectives:  February, 2009, Corporate Group and our Hospital decided to do a Lean Six Sigma project on Pressure Ulcer Prevention, Identification, Treatment, and Documentation. How can we help the staff prevent  pressure ulcers, how to identify them? how to document them? and how to treat them? What tools do they need to help them achieve better outcomes in the prevention, treatment and documentation that will not add to their already busy day in caring for patients? How can we get our prevalence down to 2% (Corporate’s goal)

 Method:  We wanted to give educational materials to the RN.  We decided to make reference booklets to give to all the RN staff on pressure ulcers.   The LSS group met weekly, and were given projects each week to complete.  The LSS project coordinator directed the group each week to put the projects that were done, into the appropriate portion of the booklet.  All information that pertained to pressure ulcers, diabetic, venous, arterial, and IAD were research based.  Algorithms were used for easy reference for the staff.
   We presented to the RN’s on 4 different education days: the reference booklets, preprinted orders, patient education on PU and reference book. 

 Outcomes:  Education RN Day: June, 2009.
                     Prevalence: August, 2009: 2.3%
                     1^st Wound Symposium was in September, 2009.  We had 55 attendees, 4 speakers and 9 vendors