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Executive Summary
Mary Job
Grand Canyon University
NRS 451 V
Dinwiddie Sandra
April, 22, 2012

Pressure ulcer prevention (PUP) in surgical patients has become a major interest in acute care hospitals with the increased focus on patient safety and quality of care. A pressure ulcer is any area of skin or underlying tissue that has been damaged by unrelieved pressure or pressure in combination with friction and shear. Pressure ulcers are caused due to diminished blood supply which in turn leads to decreased oxygen and nutrient delivery to the affected tissues (Tschannen, Bates, Talsma, &Guo, 2012). Pressure ulcers can cause extreme discomfort and often lead to serious, life threatening infections, which substantially increase the …show more content…

The vulnerable bony areas prone to pressure ulcer are back, heels, hip, spine, elbows, shoulders and back of head. Studies have proved that total operating time and overall number of surgical procedures are significant predictors of pressure ulcers. A research conducted by Lindgren et al found that 14.3 % of surgical patients acquired a pressure ulcer during the time from surgery to twelve weeks after surgery. For every thirty minutes the surgery went beyond four hours, the risk for a pressure ulcer increased by approximately thirty three percent.
As we are all aware that there is no reimbursement for a hospital acquired pressure ulcer and the cost for each pressure ulcer has to be absorbed by the facility. A patient’s development of a pressure ulcer while under the care of health care provider or facility is viewed as grounds of a professional liability law suit. The mere existence of pressure ulcer is often viewed as a physical evidence of medical negligence. The cost to treat pressure ulcers are expensive, the United Sates (US) health care system spends more than one billion dollars annually to treat pressure ulcers. It has been estimated that the cost of treating pressure ulcers is 2.5 times the cost of preventing them (Whitehead &Trueman, 2010). In order to reduce the strain on hospital budgets caused by pressure ulcers, we need to implement a planned approach to PUP and

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