Additional Sources

Today I located some wonderful references.  First of all, a 2008 paper by Amit Gefen, PhD, finds that a pressure ulcer can be initiated in as short a time as one hour.  This provides support to the essential element of the NDF Prevention Protocol that the at-risk patient must be placed on a pressure reducing surface immediately.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI.org) under their Programs section has a listing of hospitals that have made significant reductions in hospital-caused PU incidence, and that are willing to serve as mentors to other hospitals.  All of them list new support surfaces as an essential element.  I plan to ask each which support surface they procured.

Most Hopeful Development

The most hopeful development since the "never event" finding by Medicare has been the New Jersey law requiring all nursing homes to replace all beds with pressure redistribution mattresses. Our focus for the foreseeable future should be on educating the other 49 states about what New Jersey has done and asking, "why don't you take the steps needed to stop allowing bedsores?"

Poster Presentation at NPUAP

I have just been notified that our abstract has been selected for presentation at the NPUAP Biennial Conference in Las Vegas Feb 25-26, 2011.  This should be a wonderful opportunity to tell the NDF story, to  expose decision makers from hospitals across the country to the NDF Prevention Protocol.  We will also present preliminary results from our current effort to define the types of support surfaces that are suitable for use with the protocol.

How Do Hospitals Get Away with It?

Today's daily bedsore news on the NDF website (decubitus.org) tells the story of a family arrested because an 80 year old mother developed bedsores.  But hospitals are allowed to cause bedsores with impunity, even now that bedsores have been declared a medical error.  Even nursing home operators are prosecuted, but hospitals get away with it.

The Colorado Hospital Report Card

Colorado passed House Bill 06-120 requiring that quality measures for all hospitals in the state with over 100 beds be posted on the internet.  That has been done since 2007.  One of the quality measures for which hospital comparisons are available is pressure ulcers.  For 2009, four hospitals are designated below average.  Thay are Exempla Lutheran Medical Center, Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital, Longmont United Hospital, and Rio Grande Hospital.  We will contact each of those hospitals in an attempt to make them aware of the NDF Prevention Protocol, and to urge then to adopt the protocol.

Institute for Healthcare improvement

The IHI is conducting its annual conference noe in Florida (Dec 5 - 8).  Suggest going to their website and letting them know that we don't think they are paying any attention to the problem of bedsores caused by hospital care.

Fall 2010 Newsletter Due Soon

The Fall 2010 NDF Newsletter, The Ugly Secret, will be published in the next week or so.  To get the latest update on the status of bedsores in hospitals, please go to http://www.decubitus.org/ to sign up to receive the newsletter.