Pocket Guide Answers Caregivers’ Questions on MDS, ‘Present on Admission’

PRINCETON – Each year, pressure ulcers affect more than 1 million patients and residents in nursing homes and hospitals nationwide. Costs associated with pressure ulcer treatment exceed $1.3 billion. To help healthcare facilities correctly identify the various stages of pressure ulcers and the most effective methods to treat them, NJHA’s Healthcare Business Solutions has published the Pocket Guide to Pressure Ulcers. It’s a convenient bedside reference tool to support clinicians and caregivers in all healthcare settings.

NJHA partnered with two established experts in skin and wound care: co-authors Elizabeth A. Ayello, PhD, RN, FAPWA, FAAN, who served as past president of the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel and chair of NJHA’s Pressure Ulcer Collaborative, and Jeffery M. Levine, MD, AGSF, CMD, a geriatrician on staff at the St. Vincent Hospital Wound Care Center in Manhattan and a longtime presenter and author on pressure ulcers.

“This guide is like having a wound expert at your side,” said Dr. Ayello. “With its large photographs and succinct information, this guide will help healthcare professionals to identify and classify commonly seen wounds and pressure ulcers with greater ease and accuracy.”

Added Dr. Levine, “I put this book together for front-line clinicians to assist with wound documentation and meet requirements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for coding and wound identification. There is a great need for education on staging and wound identification, and I hope this book will fill part of that knowledge gap.”

NJHA’s Institute for Quality and Patient Safety has become an industry leader in pressure ulcer quality improvement efforts. Its Pressure Ulcer Collaborative received both national and international recognition for its success. After nearly two years of applying shared practices and preventive techniques, the 125 healthcare facilities that participated in the collaborative realized a 70 percent reduction in the incidence of new pressure ulcers.

“The Guide is designed to improve quality of care since increasing evidence shows that many pressure ulcers are preventable. In addition, there also is greater government scrutiny as hospitals and clinicians now are required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to document in writing when pressure ulcers are “present on admission,” according to Theresa Edelstein, senior vice president of continuing care for NJHA.

Clinical staffs in nursing homes and home care providers also are required by CMS to document skin assessments. The Guide also will help facilities save resources as reimbursement increasingly is becoming tied to providers’ performance on the skin care test.

Individual clinicians may order a single personal copy, or institutions can equip their entire team with this valuable resource at discounted rates by going to www.nopressureulcers.com.

“Patients and healthcare facilities will reap the rewards through better patient care, improved quality outcomes, more accurate and consistent documentation and greater efficiency,” said Aline Holmes, RN, senior vice president of clinical affairs for NJHA.