Pressure Ulcers as a Healthcare Project Topic

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Table of Contents

Problem
Setting
Educational Need
Impact
Significance
Solution
References

Problem

The development of pressure ulcers (PU) among inpatients currently represents a major problem in the healthcare environment. Being a soft-tissue injury caused by unrelieved pressure over a bony prominence, PU leads to discomfort and the development of comorbid health issues in patients (Tran, McLaughlin, Li, & Phillips, 2016). Therefore, innovative techniques for addressing the problem of PU need to be integrated into the environment of modern healthcare (Soban, Kim, Yuan, & Miltner, 2017; Alexander, 2015). A comprehensive approach that incorporates nurse education, the use of alternative support surfaces, and control over the hospital microclimate will allow avoiding PU caused by the lack of mobility.

Setting

The environment of an acute care unit (ACU) in a local healthcare facility is the target setting of the research to be conducted. A hospital with 121 inpatients will serve as the setting for the study. The promotion of nurse education about the needs of immobilized patients and the strategies for avoiding the development of PU will take place in the setting of the hospital in question. There is presently a strong educational need in providing instructions to nurses about meeting the needs of immobilized patients. Without effective approaches toward preventing and managing PU, the described phenomenon will affect an increasingly large number of patients, increasing their hospital stay, reducing the pace of recovery, and creating additional threats to their health.

Educational Need

The current approach toward managing PU among inpatients includes a rather limited range of options. Nurses typically reduce the prevention of PU in immobilized patients by repositioning them several times a day (Alexander, Steege, Pasupathy, & Wise, 2015; Whitty et al., 2017). However, the described approach does not allow reducing the problem of PU to the required level since the management of PU includes not only more frequent repositioning of patients but also the incorporation of hospital microclimate management and the use of appropriate surfaces for the target demographic (Roberts et al., 2016).

Thus, locating the current extent of nurses knowledge about the management of PU among inpatients and the identification of the education approaches needed for nurses to acquire the necessary amount of knowledge are the priorities of the study.

Impact

It is believed that the study results will produce a sizeable positive impact on the levels of recovery and general well-being among hospital inpatients. With the introduction of nurse education and the focus on detailed instructions for repositioning patients with PU and shaping the hospital microclimate, nurses will address the PU issue successfully (Woodhouse, Worsley, Voegeli, Schoonhoven, & Bader, 2019).

While nurse education and changes in guidelines against PU are expected to have a particularly strong long-term effect, the change in the microclimate of the hospital setting is also believed to produce an important impact (Lavallée, Gray, Dumville, & Cullum, 2018). Specifically, the exposure to the factors that lead to PU development, such as humidity and friction, will be minimized to maintain the quality of care.

Significance

The changes in the levels of nurses competence in handling PU and in the hospital microclimate will have an impressive effect on the levels of inpatients well-being. Therefore, the outcomes of the research will have at least medium significance for the problem of PU in the hospital setting (Cereda, Klersy, Serioli, Crespi, & DAndrea, 2015). The combination of nurse education and changes in external factors affecting a patients condition will ameliorate the situation involving prolonged immobilization of a patient.

Solution

It is believed that the integration of the principles of interdisciplinary collaboration will be especially important in changing the hospital microclimate and introducing nurses to new standards for managing patients needs. The described strategy will lead to detailed scrutiny of the factors that enhance the development of PU and the external issues preventing nurses from performing the necessary prevention procedures (Amirah et al., 2019). As a result, the problem of PU will be resolved in the target setting.

References

Alexander, G. L. (2015). Nurse assistant communication strategies about pressure ulcers in nursing homes. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 37(7), 984-1004. Web.

Alexander, G. L., Steege, L. M., Pasupathy, K. S., & Wise, K. (2015). Case studies of IT sophistication in nursing homes: A mixed-method approach to examine communication strategies about pressure ulcer prevention practices. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 49, 156-166. Web.

Amirah, M. F. Y., Rasheed, A. M. Y., Parameaswari, P. J., Awajeh, A. M., Issa, M. R., & Abdallah, M. (2019). Pressure injury prevalence and risk factors among adult critically ill patients at a large intensive care unit. Journal of Intensive Critical Care, 5(2), 9-12. Web.

Cereda, E., Klersy, C., Serioli, M., Crespi, A., & DAndrea, F. (2015). A Nutritional formula enriched with arginine, zinc and antioxidants for the healing of pressure ulcers. Annals of Internal Medicine, 162(3), 167-74. Web.

Lavallée, J. F., Gray, T. A., Dumville, J., & Cullum, N. (2018). Barriers and facilitators to preventing pressure ulcers in nursing home residents: A qualitative analysis informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 82, 79-89. Web.

Roberts, S., McInnes, E., Wallis, M., Bucknall, T., Banks, M., & Chaboyer, W. (2016). Nurses perceptions of a pressure ulcer prevention care bundle: A qualitative descriptive study. BMC Nursing, 15(1), 64-73. Web.

Soban, L. M., Kim, L., Yuan, A. H., & Miltner, R. S. (2017). Organisational strategies to implement hospital pressure ulcer prevention programmes: Findings from a national survey. Journal of Nursing Management, 25(6), 457-467. Web.

Tran, J. P., McLaughlin, J. M., Li, R. T., & Phillips, L. G. (2016). Prevention of pressure ulcers in the acute care setting: New innovations and technologies. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 138(3S), 232-240. Web.

Whitty, J. A., McInnes, E., Bucknall, T., Webster, J., Gillespie, B. M., Banks, M.,& Chaboyer, W. (2017). The cost-effectiveness of a patient centred pressure ulcer prevention care bundle: Findings from the INTACT cluster randomised trial. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 75, 35-42. Web.

Woodhouse, M., Worsley, P. R., Voegeli, D., Schoonhoven, L., & Bader, D. L. (2019). How consistent and effective are current repositioning strategies for pressure ulcer prevention? Applied Nursing Research, 48, 58-62. Web.

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