PRESSURE INJURIES
Despite having the most advanced support surfaces, the highest quality nurses and the most stringent turning protocols - ICUs also have the highest-pressure injury rates in the entire hospital.
To understand why, you must first understand that pressure is the root cause of pressure injuries.
Pressure injuries proliferate in ICUs because:
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Turning patients doesn’t eliminate pressure. Turning simply moves pressure from one body area to another; with no way of knowing whether the new position is free of high pressure.
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Specialty beds, regardless of their high cost, have not solved the problem because the bed cannot recognize if and where pressure exists, and what inflation level is appropriate for each patient at any given time.
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Without seeing patient’s actual pressure status - both past and present – pressure cannot be effectively offloaded which is the key to PI prevention.
