Improved Patient Safety with the Use of the SEM Scanner

Background and Objective

St Mary’s hospital, on the Isle of Wight, is a district general hospital receiving medical, surgical and orthopaedic admissions. The Isle of Wight population has a high proportion (over 25%) of over 65s.

From April 2014 to March 2015, 390 hospital-acquired pressure ulcers of all grades were reported in the Trust. Of these, 68 were the most serious grade 3 or 4 pressure ulcers.

To address this, St Mary’s Hospital evaluated a new technology to support early detection and prevention of early stage pressure ulcers.

Materials & Methods

The SEM Scanner was piloted on a medical ward for a period of two months amongst medical and non-elective surgical patients who were deemed at risk of pressure ulcers (Waterlowscore >10).

Patients had their heels and sacrum scanned once a day from admission. Patients were deemed to have early pressure damage if the SEM Δ value was ≥0.6. The scanners were used by the Healthcare Assistants with the registered nurses interpreting values and making adjustments to clinical care plans as indicated by the objective measurements of the scanners.

Result

All of the 35 patients that were scanned had deviations indicative of potential or incipient pressure induced damage (i.e. delta was recorded as ≥0.6). None of the 35 patients that were scanned went on to develop new pressure ulcers during their inpatient stay, although at least one went on to develop pressure ulcers on discharge within 7 days of their inpatient admission.

Conclusions

The evaluation suggests that the inclusion of the SEM Scanner as part of the examination of the patient was able to inform clinicians about risk before the visual signs of further deterioration occurred. Further, the results were informative to the clinicians and helped the staff in their efforts to mitigate pressure ulcer risk in the area.