MUNDELEIN, IL--(Marketwire - February 15, 2011) - Healthcare facilities throughout the country are reporting an average 70 percent reduction in facility-acquired pressure ulcers by implementing Medline Industries, Inc.'s Pressure Ulcer Prevention Program (PUPP). These same facilities are potentially saving up to $306,000 per year (based on having 7.1 fewer pressure ulcers at an average treatment of $43,180 per pressure ulcer, according to CMS(1)). To date, more than 669 healthcare facilities are utilizing a Medline pressure ulcer prevention program.
“The targeted education offered for physicians, RNs, LPNs and CNAs, through Medline’s Pressure Ulcer Prevention Program, provides healthcare facilities with the tools that have been identified by leading experts to help reduce the incidence of facility-acquired pressure ulcers,” said Alecia Cooper, senior vice president of clinical services. “When the education is combined with evidence-based products and hands-on program management and tracking, most facilities see a significant decrease in the incidence of their pressure ulcers and an increase in patient satisfaction.”
Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital
One of the hospitals using Medline’s Pressure Ulcer Prevention Program is Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital, a 225-bed facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In January 2009, the hospital had a 9% incidence rate in its ICU and medical/surgical and telemetry units. Following a 90-day trial using the PUPP program, Jennie Edmundson eliminated pressure ulcers and continues to consistently report no new pressure ulcers.
“Our results were so good we’ve gone hospital-wide with the Medline pressure ulcer prevention program,” said Beth Edwards, RN, BS, clinical quality specialist for Jennie Edmundson Hospital. “We have adopted the Remedy® products and UltraSorbs® underpads throughout the whole facility.”
Regina Health Center
Staff members at Regina Health Center, a nursing home in Richfield, Ohio, and a 4-Star facility according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), recently received award certificates through Medline’s PUPP program for undergoing and passing extensive training to enhance resident and patient care focused on preventing pressure ulcers.
In collaboration with Medline, Regina Health Center staff employed multiple interventions over a four-month time period, resulting in a dramatic increase in staff education and enhanced quality care.
“We are very pleased with the results and our ongoing pursuit to provide the best care possible to our residents and patients,” said Janet Cinadr, director of nursing at Regina Health Center. “We feel that a lot of that has to do with increased staff education on identification of pressure ulcers when residents are admitted to the facility and the interventions we’ve put into place.”
To measure the effectiveness of the education, the clinical staff at Regina Health took a pre-test prior to the implementation of the PUPP program and another test after the education. Of the 39 nurses that took the pre-test, 69 percent passed. Following the pressure ulcer prevention education, 95 percent of the nurses passed the post-test. Similar results were found with the 62 nursing assistants; 80 percent passed the pre-test and 90 percent passed the post-test.
According to Cinadr, the keys to success of Medline’s PUPP program are the educational materials, such as nurse and nursing assistant workbooks, instructor notebooks and teaching materials and patient and family education brochures. The program also provides long-term assistance in the areas of staff education, training and tracking the program’s effectiveness.
“The program not only increases the assessment skills and patient care abilities of our staff, it helps us remain in compliance with new rules and regulations the government rolled,” said Cinadr. “These educational materials give us a major advantage in treating our residents and patients and reducing the number of pressure ulcers at our facility.”
Skin care products in the program include Medline’s Remedy® line of moisturizers, cleansers, skin protectants and antifungals. Incontinence products, such as dry pads and adult briefs, are also part of the product offering. Both of these products help keep the skin dry, which is a crucial step in reducing and preventing incontinence-associated skin maceration and potential development of pressure ulcers. To round out the pressure ulcer prevention program, low-air-loss mattresses are also offered, which help to reduce pressure on sensitive areas of the body.
Pressure ulcers (also called “bed sores”) affect millions of people each year.(2) They can be painful and dangerous to nursing home residents and hospital patients and expensive to treat.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the total cost to treat pressure ulcers in the United States is estimated at $11 billion per year.(3) In 2006, there were 503,300 hospital stays during which pressure ulcers were noted -- a 78 percent increase from 1993, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) in a statistical brief, December 2008.(4)
About Medline Industries, Inc.
Medline, the nation’s largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare products, manufactures and distributes more than 100,000 products to hospitals, extended-care facilities, surgery centers, home care dealers and agencies. Headquartered in Mundelein, Ill., Medline has more than 900 dedicated sales representatives nationwide to support its broad product line and cost management services.
(1) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Proposed Changes to the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment Systems. Federal Register. 2008: 73(84): 23550. Available at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/08-1135.pdf.
(2) Lyder CH. Pressure ulcer prevention and management. JAMA. 2003;289(2):223-226.
Reddy M, Gill SS, Rochon PA. Preventing pressure ulcers: A systematic review. I. 2006;296:974-984.
(3) Reddy M, Gill SS, Rochon PA. Preventing pressure ulcers: A systematic review. JAMA. 2006;296:974-984.
(4) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Statistical brief #64, December 2008.
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