title: Tracking skin integrity: a template for hospital and vendor collaboration.
abstract: Collaborative endeavors are particularly attractive in a time when resources are under extensive demand, but for organizations to be successful at collaboration, many shared values and qualities are necessary. In 1992, a hospital and a vendor of therapeutic bed surfaces entered into a collaborative partnership to test clinical indicator ability to track skin care outcomes. The vendor contributed major funding for the project, a national database from which clinical indicators on pressure ulcers were determined, and data processing and analysis. The hospital provided project coordination, clinical knowledge, data collectors, and access to patients. The article describes the process, problems, and benefits of collaboration and underscores the need for a trusting psychological climate, strong mutual interest in the project, clearly stated goals with resources to meet them, collaborator consideration of each other as peers, and skill in tension management if collaboration is to be successful.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH, USA.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kilpack
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Campion
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Stover
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Cocke
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D009513:New Hampshire; D009738:Nursing Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D009935:Organizational Affiliation; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010934:Planning Techniques; D003668:Pressure Ulcer / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000379:methods*