Increasing pressure ulcer prevention awareness: An acute care facility's continuing campaign

In 2013, we had 187 reported hospital acquired pressure ulcers (HAPUs) in our acute care facility.  From January to August 2014, 47 HAPUs were reported, compared to 127 in 2013.  This equates to a HAPU decline rate of 68 %.  One of our key strategies in decreasing HAPUs was to increase pressure ulcer prevention awareness among the frontline staff.  The methods we employed included: 1) Our Wound, Ostomy and Continence (WOC) nurses developed a quarterly newsletter that is emailed to our skin champions and posted on the bulletin boards of all our nursing units.  The newsletter features the monthly HAPU rates of each unit, and the quarterly pressure ulcer prevalence results.  Two of our skin champions are also featured in a brief article.  2)  The lead WOC nurse now sends bimonthly emails regarding our HAPUs to managers and skin champions so they can track how their units were doing.  3) Monthly skin champion meetings were initiated. 4) Posters with humorous or catchy themes were developed to remind the staff of the skin champion meetings and the prevalence studies.  5) An audit tool for all our HAPUs was developed, which our WOC nurses fill out immediately and send to the managers of the units of concern.  6) A checklist of pressure ulcer prevention measures was created and posted on our ICU doors which the ICU RNs complete every shift.  7) During orientation, newly hired ICU RNs and CNAs spend four hours with the WOC nurses rounding on patients and learning about our prevention measures.  8) Attending physicians are called when pressure ulcers are discovered. 9) Staff RN or physician is required to notify patient and family of pressure ulcers.  Increasing awareness regarding pressure ulcer prevention helped engage our frontline staff, and thus decrease our HAPU rates.