Education Promotes Best Practice in Skin Champions

PURPOSE: A common trend in healthcare organizations is to develop teams of unit-based skin champions dedicated to reducing skin injuries. The purpose of this abstract is to illustrate how collaboration between industry and a skin champion team lead to heightened quality patient care through education and accountability.

DESCRIPTION: As part of a comprehensive skin and wound care program in a large metropolitan area Level I trauma system, a Certified Wound Ostomy Continence (CWOCN) nurse manager and an industry-based CWOC nurse (CWOCN) educator collaborated quarterly to educate 45 Skin Champion team members. With varying levels of knowledge of skin and wound care issues, continuing education (CE) on skin and wound management was provided to registered nurse team members in all practice settings (Eg: Inpatient/Outpatient, MICU, TSICU, OR, L&D, NICU, Med-Surg). At the initiation of the educational offerings, the champions lacked confidence in their critical thinking related to identifying risk factors, prevention, or treatment of medical adhesive related skin injuries (MARSI), pressure ulcers, and moisture associated skin damage (MASD).

EVALUATION/OUTCOME: The product training and CE content provided by industry partners to skin champions translated into shared knowledge with interdisciplinary team members, proper use of products, and improved critical thinking skills. The skin champions reported an increased confidence in assessing patients for risks of skin injuries, an increased level of comfort with products and in reaching out to the industry to solve patient problems specific to their unit. When industry partners with clinicians who translate education to bedside practice, patient safety improves.