Pressure Ulcers

By Cheryl Carver, LPN, WCC, CWCA, DAPWCA, FACCWS

My approach to wound care education with patients, providers, and nursing staff the last 20+ years has always been to make learning fun while emphasizing that wounds are a serious topic. My strong passion drives me to motivate anyone and everyone who wants to learn. If they don’t want to learn, then I’ll figure out the best way to motivate them! Everyone learns differently; however, hands-on training with added fun usually wins. Education should be ongoing and engaging, and it should create fun ways to experience more of those “aha” moments. We want to impact that long-term memory storage! Every care setting has variances, but my blog will provide you with some ideas that you can alter to fit your needs.

By Cathy Wogamon, DNP, MSN, FNP-BC, CWON, CFCN

Many questions arise and confusion develops when wound care providers mention Kennedy terminal ulcers (KTUs). Because these wounds are not frequently seen, and because they develop rapidly and observation ends abruptly with the death of the patient, wound care providers may have never observed a KTU, even in a long career in wound care. Although the literature reveals that there is a lack of knowledge regarding the exact cause of a KTU, let’s look at the facts currently known from published resources.

By Diane L. Krasner, PhD, RN, FAAN

Scope of Practice and Standards of Practice guide nurses and other members of the interprofessional wound care team in caring for patients with wounds. Documentation in the medical record is a key aspect of the standard of practice and serves to record the care delivered to the patient or resident. Your documentation should follow your facility guideline for documentation. Accurate documentation helps to improve patient safety, outcomes, and quality of care.

This WoundSource Trending Topic blog considers general wound documentation dos and don'ts and presents 10 tips for success. Good, better, and best documentation examples are included for each tip.

Patients who develop stage 3 and 4 pressure injuries with prolonged wound chronicity and complexity may require surgical intervention. One surgical method used to encourage healing in pressure injuries is flap surgery, which involves taking a section of skin with an intact blood supply and placing it over the injured area. Flaps play a major role in the healing of wounds with exposed structure. Flap surgery can help prevent hospitalization and decrease morbidity. Flap surgery is used to prevent and resolve complications, including surgical site infections and other infections, dehiscence, recurrence, flap necrosis, nutrient deficiencies, and prevention of future malignancy (Marjolin ulcer) and seroma or hematoma.

When pressure injury prevention fails as a result of non-adherence, various comorbidities, or gaps in care, it makes a major impact on the nation’s economy and has estimated costs of more than $100 billion in the United States.

Pressure injuries are among the most significant health and patient safety issues that health care facilities face daily. Aside from the strong impact on patients’ quality of life, they also have high costs of treatment, not just to the patient, but also to the health care industry. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported $20,900 to $151,700 per individual patient and pressure injury in health care costs. The prevalence of present-on-admission (POA) pressure injuries is 26.2% among those admitted to the hospital from a nursing home and 4.8% among those admitted from another living setting. Hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) cost the US health care system $9.1 to $11.6 billion a year.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced health care professionals to take a closer look at the most effective and appropriate measures for pressure injury prevention. In 17% of all COVID-19 cases pneumonia secondary to acute respiratory distress syndrome is the most common complication; therefore, prone positioning is used as an adjuvant therapy. The prone position allows for dorsal lung region recruitment, end-expiratory lung volume increase, and alveolar shunt decrease. To be most effective, this position should be maintained for 10 to 12 hours, thereby increasing prolonged pressure on certain areas of the body. However, prone positioning should be supervised and monitored regularly by nursing staff experienced with this positioning technique.

Adherence: Adherence is a term used to replace "compliance" in reference to a patient following clinician orders for wound care. Compliance implies that the patient should passively comply with the health care provider’s instructions, whereas adherence allows for patients to have the freedom to follow the provider’s recommendation without blame being focused on them if they do not or are not able to follow these recommendations.

Medical device–related pressure injury (MDRPI): MDPRIs are localized injuries to the skin or underlying tissue resulting from sustained pressure caused by a medical device, such as a brace, splint, cast, respiratory mask or tubing, or feeding tube.

Offloading: Offloading refers to minimizing or removing weight placed on the foot to help prevent and heal ulcers, particularly those caused by poor circulation to the feet due to diabetes.

Holly Hovan MSN, APRN, RN-BC, CWOCN-AP

Identifying wound etiology before initiating topical treatment is important. Additionally, correctly documenting wound etiology is significant in health care settings for many reasons. Accurate documentation and appropriate topical treatment are two critical components of a strong wound treatment plan and program. Bedside staff members should be comfortable with describing wounds, tissue types, and differentiating wound etiologies. Training should be provided by the certified wound care clinician, along with follow-up (chart reviews and documentation checks, one-on-one education as needed, and routine competency or education days). Additionally, the wound care clinician should be able to develop an appropriate treatment plan based on wound etiology, by involving additional disciplines as needed to best treat the whole patient.

By Thomas E. Serena, MD, and Khristina Harrell, RN

With apologies to Nietzsche: "What kills you makes you dead." The slow painful death of large and expensive in-person conferences has begun. Technological evolution has selected against these lumbering dinosaurs, but, rather than a massive asteroid, the parlous event came as a microscopic virus. Lockdowns and social distancing enacted in response to COVID-19 pushed us all deeper into a virtual world, a world that will persist long after COVID resolves.