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Website spotlight: Organization revamps wound care documentation policies and procedures

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, September 30, 2011

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Chronic wounds not only affect millions of patients, but they also represent a significant burden to the healthcare professionals who are trying to manage and assess them.

There are many roads to wound care right now—physician offices, wound care facilities, hospitals, outpatient clinics, and home care—and all clinicians like to think that, whenever possible, they're delivering best practices to their patients and staff, but effective documentation as part of an already busy day may not yet be integrated into routine practice.

Plus, new legislation removing reimbursement for never events and the new mandatory reporting of adverse events means your facility might find itself shouldering hefty sums for hospital-acquired conditions, which is what wounds present on admission will be considered if they lack adequate documentation.
 
Such was the case for Prime Healthcare Management in Ontario, CA, before it standardized its wound care documentation. Prime is a 14-facility healthcare system consisting of more than 2,000 acute and psychiatric beds. After discovering its documentation was less than optimal, Suzanne Richards, RN, MBA, MPH, FACHE, chief clinical officer for Prime, took it upon herself to spearhead a revamping of the organization's wound care documentation policies and procedures.

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Editor's note: To read the rest of this free article, visit the Reading Room, part of www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com.

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