title: Preventing Heel Pressure Ulcers: Sustained Quality Improvement Initiative in a Canadian Acute Care Facility.
abstract: The setting for this quality improvement initiative designed to reduce the prevalence of facility-acquired heel pressure ulcers was a regional, acute-care, 490-bed facility in Ontario, Canada, responsible for dialysis, vascular, and orthopedic surgery. An interdisciplinary skin and wound care team designed an evidence-based quality improvement initiative based on a systematic literature review and standardization of heel offloading methods. The prevalence of heel pressure ulcers was measured at baseline (immediately prior to implementation of initiative) and at 1 and 4 years following implementation. The prevalence of facility-acquired heel pressure ulcers was 5.8% when measured before project implementation. It was 4.2% at 1 year following implementation and 1.6% when measured at the end of the 4-year initiative. Outcomes demonstrate that the initiative resulted in a continuous and sustained reduction in facility-acquired heel pressure ulcer incidence over a 4-year period.
authors.affiliation: Debbie Hanna-Bull, BScN, RN, MN, Skin & Wound Care Program, Peterborough Regional Health Centre, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Debbie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hanna-Bull
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003422:Critical Care; D006365:Heel; D006801:Humans; D003668:Pressure Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015995:Prevalence; D058996:Quality Improvement; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017592:Skin Care