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Pressure Injuries

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care – A Case Study: End of Life Issues and Pressure Ulcers

October 3, 2019
By Heidi Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON Ms. EB, a frail 82-year-old woman admitted to a long-term care facility, had a complex medical history that included diabetes, extensive heart disease, ischemi...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care – Extrinsic Risk Factors for Unavoidable Pressure Ulcers

May 9, 2019
By Heidi Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON "At all times material hereto, defendant failed to develop an adequate care plan and properly monitor and supervise the care and treatment in order to prevent ...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care – Is That Ulcer Unavoidable or Not?

January 31, 2019
by Heidi H. Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON "If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed sore, it is generally the fault not...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care – Tube Feed or Not Tube Feed. That Is the Question!

April 8, 2022
As detailed in my last few blogs, nutrition plays a huge role in risk for skin breakdown as well as healing of wounds. Just about ALL wound litigation involves nutrition in one way or another, be it d...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care – Wound Care From a “30,000-Foot” View

April 1, 2021
By Heidi Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON Since the advent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), I haven’t done much flying, but I love travel and I love flying. One of my favorite experiences is a w...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care, Part 3: Turning and Positioning

November 29, 2018
by Heidi H. Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON Failure to T&P (turn and position) is always part and parcel of a pressure ulcer lawsuit and a key element of a complaint related to pressure ulcers, as ill...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care, Part 4: Risk Assessments

January 2, 2019
by Heidi H. Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON When looking at medical charts from a legal perspective, one of the areas closely scrutinized is the risk assessment for skin breakdown and pressure ulcer d...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care: Adjusting Expectations

January 23, 2020
By Heidi Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." – Charles Dicken When Charles Dickens wrote this introduction to his Victorian-era novel, A Tale of T...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care: Nutrition Assessment, Support, and Documentation, Part 2

August 20, 2020
In the previous blog, I briefly went through the standards of care when it comes to nutrition and pressure injury (PI) prevention and development and discussed what a large role nutrition plays in PI ...

Legal Perils and Pitfalls of Wound Care: Nutrition Assessment, Support, and Documentation, Part 3

September 24, 2020
By Heidi Cross, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, CWON "Defendants failed to provide adequate nutrition to prevent plaintiff from suffering severe malnutrition and weight loss. This allowed the development of a sev...
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