Thursday 19 November is Worldwide Pressure Injury Prevention Day 2020 – a great opportunity to increase awareness about pressure injuries and how we prevent and manage them.
Once called bedsores, pressure injuries are areas of localised damage to the skin and underlying soft tissue. These wounds usually form over bony prominences, like the tailbone and heels, or in relation to medical devices such as a face mask pressing on the face.
Pressure injuries are a potentially life-threatening but largely preventable condition that has significant costs for patients and families including increased morbidity and mortality, and reduced quality of life.
On Tuesday 24 November, Arjo, in association with the Australian College of Nursing are running a webinar in support of pressure injury prevention. The topic is ‘The challenges of staging pressure injury in darkly pigmented skin – a Western Sydney experience’ and will feature a presentation from Andrea Kirk, Pressure Injury Coordinator at Western Sydney Local Health District. For more information on the session and how to register, you can download the flyer.
The team at Monash Health have made a number of resources available to employees. These work to increase knowledge of pressure injury prevention:
- The new National Standards Training – Preventing and Managing Pressure Injuries eLearn is now live. This eLearn will support clinicians to understand and deliver high quality pressure injury care.
- Pressure Injury staging lanyards designed to assist clinicians in accurately staging pressure injuries are available to order. They can be ordered via iPROC using the order code 173661.
- To find out more about pressure injuries, you can visit the pressure injury page on the intranet.
The National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel has a number of resources to aid pressure injury prevention, which you can find on their website.
Approved by Katrina Nankervis