AHRQ toolkit helps to prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's new Web-based resource can assist hospital staff in implementing effective pressure-ulcer prevention practices through an interdisciplinary approach to care.

Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals: A Toolkit for Improving Quality of Care, provides links to tools that outline a step-by-step hospital-based initiative to target interventions in those areas where patient care processes have shown the most risks to patient skin integrity. Pressure ulcers acquired during acute care hospital stays present significant treatment and recovery delays for patients. Hospitals can tailor the toolkit to meet their needs to implement new strategies and to track, record, and assess progress in pressure-ulcer management.

According to AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, the costs for adults in U.S. hospitals treated for pressure ulcers developed prior to admission or hospital-acquired is more than $11 billion dollars a year. The Pressure Ulcer Toolkit is included as a resource in the new Partnership for Patients, a public-private program to improve patient safety.