New Online Course: Preventing Pressure Ulcers

Despite significant efforts to spread known best practices, pressure ulcers continue to cause unnecessary harm to patients ---- increasing the amount of time patients remain in the hospital, and costing health care organizations around the world millions of dollars every year. A new online course in the IHI Open School's professional catalog, PS 202: Preventing Pressure Ulcers, provides practical strategies to help organizations achieve the goal of "getting to zero." The course, which contains four lessons, begins with the basics of pressure ulcers and then quickly moves into best practices, advice from exemplary organizations, and guidance from IHI faculty member (and course guide) Kathy Duncan, RN. The final lesson explains how organizations can apply the Model for Improvement to prevention efforts. The course, based on the IHI How-to Guide of the same name, is worth 1.50 credit hours for US nurses, physicians, and pharmacists. Be sure to check out more Open School online courses on patient safety and quality improvement.