At Spaulding Hospital Cambridge, our staff is committed to improving the quality of care and safety of our patients. We strive for excellence while taking care of extremely compromised patients. The SHC patients are chronically critically ill and are at high risk for skin breakdown, nutritionally compromised, have compromised perfusion, have impaired mobility & activity, often unable to effectively communicate, attached to multiple medical devices and braces, and are sometimes resistant to recommended prevention interventions. The average length of stay at Spaulding Hospital Cambridge is also much longer compared to most facilities, averaging 25-30 days. We have implemented many new process improvements to decrease the number of pressure ulcers at our facility including the 2nd Nurse Skin Check which is done within 24 hours of admission to confirm that all pressure ulcers were identified upon admission, continued staff education related to pressure ulcer prevention and early intervention, improved support surfaces to provide more adequate pressure relief, nurse driven Wound Care Referrals for early intervention, and a network wide initiative to improve policies & practice by developing the Spaulding Network Wound Care Group. In the last 6 months we have already seen a decrease in pressure ulcers due to the interventions put in place in the last year and we know going forward we will only improve. SHC takes each PatientCareLink Pressure Ulcer Prevalence audit as an opportunity to learn and implement further improvements to our current pressure ulcer prevention program. By doing this, we can provide high quality care to all of our patients and keep our clinical staff educated and competent in the care of this extremely medically complex and compromised patient population.
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| 25 March 2015 |
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