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Pilot pressure ulcer prevention programs on one unit for success

Quality Improvement Monitor, November 2, 2007

Editor's note: This is the first part in a series that details how to prevent hospital-acquired conditions that CMS will no longer pay for.

The gasps usually erupt shortly after Kathy Duncan, RN, begins her presentation about how to prevent pressure ulcers.

That's when Duncan, a faculty member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) 5 Million Lives Campaign, starts talking about what a healthcare organization's objective should be when it comes to preventing bedsores.

"What I like to tell folks-and I often get gasps-is that the goal is zero. Period," Duncan says. "It is not acceptable for people to develop pressure ulcers in the hospital. They are preventable."

Prevention of pressure sores has been in the spotlight ever since the IHI announced last December that it was one of the six initiatives of its 5 Million Lives Campaign. And if that didn't do enough to grab hospitals' attention, the new CMS rule most certainly will.

Beginning October 1, 2008, CMS will no longer pay to treat pressure ulcers that were not documented as present on admission.

Duncan says, should start pressure ulcer prevention programs with one unit and give staff members the freedom to figure out the documentation and assessment process. The best ideas, she says, usually come from frontline workers, such as nurses, nursing assistants, radiology technicians, and phlebotomists.

Access the full story in the October issue of Quality Improvement Report; access is free for subscribers, nonsubscribers can purchase a copy of the story for $10.

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