As seen on “McKnight’s Long Term Care News”……
Recently a colleague sent me a link to “Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals, A Tool Kit for Improving Quality of Care,” from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It’s the latest “how-to” manual designed to help wound care providers improve pressure ulcer prevention. It didn’t contain anything really new. It would seem not much has changed in the 16 years since the original AHCPR Pressure Ulcer Guidelines were published. But as I read it three things struck me:
1. Almost one-third of the manual is devoted to the challenge of change management, not clinical management of wounds.
2. It provides of plethora of “tools” (i.e. paper forms) to help nurses monitor performance and track wound outcomes manually.
3. There is no mention of the use of technology as a tool to enable nurses to achieve better outcomes in less time.
Chapter headings and sub-headings in the AHRQ Tool Kit reveal the daunting challenge providers face when taking on quality improvement: “Are we ready for this change?” “Do organizational members understand why change is needed?” “Is there a sense of urgency?” “How will we manage change?” “What if we’re not ready?”
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Anne Scheurich, RN, BS, CWOCN is the Director of Clinical Services at Telemedicine Solutions/WoundRounds.
