Pressure Ulcer Prevention
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BENEFITS OF REASSESSMENTS
The rationale for reassessments is that if PUs are going to develop, they will usually develop within the first two to four weeks of a resident's admission. In one study, for example, of 102 newly admitted nursing home residents, 28 developed PUs, all of them within four weeks of admission (9). In addition, findings from the reassessments can be used as a foundation for the resident's skin care plan.
The point to understand is if you skip reassessments of at-risk residents, you'll undermine your own prevention efforts.
It happens all the time. When we evaluated PU care in 16 nursing homes (see our Overview for background on this study), we looked for risk assessments to be conducted weekly for four weeks when a resident was admitted to the nursing home. Any fewer reassessments of these residents, we believe, amounts to substandard care.
None of the facilities we evaluated passed this quality indicator. Worse yet, none of them even came close. We lowered the bar to two reassessments within the first four weeks of admission and still all the facilities failed.
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