Pressure Ulcers/Injury Reduction

This self help guide for pressure ulcer prevention and treatment provides information on best practices guidelines by expert organizations for preventing and caring for pressure ulcers.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers four pressure ulcers/injuries toolkits including Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals Toolkit, Pressure Injury Prevention in Hospitals Training Program, On-Time Pressure Ulcer Prevention and On-Time Pressure Ulcer Healing. More information about each toolkit is available on the AHRQ website.

Use this handout to help your staff assess the levels of hydration, activity, nutrition and dental care with residents.

Reference this document for more information on assessing pressure ulcer risk and management needs.

Use this document to properly classify and measure pressure ulcers.

Minimum Data Set (MDS) training is available in Section M, Assessment and Coding of Pressure Ulcers/Injuries. Scroll down the page to locate the Section M materials.

This guide depicts the early appearance and evolution of a deep tissue pressure injury (DTPI) from intact, deep red/maroon or purple colored skin to epidermolysis and "blood blisters." The guide also includes the differential diagnoses (imposters) of ischemic and traumatic injury that can mimic DTPI.

Use this Excel document to help identify the root cause for the development of a specific resident's pressure ulcer and help identify opportunities for preventing pressure ulcers going forward. (Reviewed August 2023)

Use this document to help identify potential causes leading to facility-acquired pressure ulcers.

This article, from the National Library of Medicine, discusses the causes of, and risk factors for, heel pressure ulcers and describes techniques and devices that nurses can use to prevent them.

This educational brochure informs patients and families about pressure ulcers and how they can assist health care providers in preventing them.

A perfect storm is developing around the issue of heel pressure ulcer prevalence. An aging, ailing population, a nursing shortage, and the myriad ways pressure ulcers form can make lowering the prevalence of heel pressure ulcers seem nearly impossible. A fully integrated multidisciplinary approach has been proven to significantly lower facility-wide heel pressure ulcer prevalence rates. Read this white paper for more details. (Reviewed 2023)

The Mini Nutritional Assessment is a validated nutrition screening and assessment tool that can identify geriatric patients age 65 and above who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.

The National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP) has issued position statements on preventing injury with N95 masks.

Use this resource link to identify the Pressure Injury Classification System by skin tones, learn pressure injury care process flowcharts and locate pressure injury educational resources in different languages.

This document from the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP) explains and visualizes how to establish and manage a prone position while monitoring for the risk of pressure injuries.

Use this document to assess your team's knowledge of pressure ulcer identification and treatment.

Download this infographic from the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP) about preventing injury with N95 masks.

This guide can assist in identifying the severity of and accurately documenting a patient's or resident's malnutrition.

This quality measure tip sheet provides an overview of the measure, including questions to ask, monitoring ideas and resource links.

This quality measure tip sheet provides an overview of the high-risk pressure ulcer/injury (long-stay) measure, minimum data set coding requirements, including questions to ask, monitoring ideas, and resource links.

View this video featuring TMF Quality Improvement Specialist Melody Malone, PT, CPHQ, MHA, who reviews the quality measure (QM) specification for long-stay high-risk residents with pressure ulcers/injuries and how to identify the relationship between the minimum data set and QM.

Facility-acquired pressure ulcers are painful for residents and a drain on resources for nursing facilities. This webinar from TMF will teach you how to look at facility-acquired pressure ulcers and find the real root causes, as well as identify sustainable systems improvements.

This Spanish-language educational brochure informs patients and families about pressure ulcers and how they can assist health care providers in preventing them.