The Challenge:
Pressure Injury Prevention
Why is the incidence of Pressure Injuries (PIs) increasing when all other hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) are on the decline?
2.5
MILLION
patients are affected by pressure injuries each year
60,000
people die annually directly as a result of pressure injuries
$11.6
BILLION
direct pressure injury costs incurred in the U.S. every year
Pressure Injuries (PIs) by the Numbers
Based on data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Pressure Injuries: Costly and Deadly
Rates for many Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs) have declined, however, data from the AHRQ shows the national rate of pressure injuries rose by 6%. While pressure injuries are mostly preventable, they can severely impair patient quality of life and often lead to increased morbidity, mortality, and costs.
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Mortality rate can be five times higher
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Cost of individual patient care ranges from $20,900 to $151,700 per pressure injury
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Medicare estimated in 2007 that each pressure injury added $43,180 in costs to a hospital stay
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An average 300-bed acute facility with a 2.4% incidence rate spends $14 million a year on PI prevention and treatment
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CMS spends $22 billion a year on pressure injuries as a secondary diagnosis and will not reimburse hospitals for any additional care for a HAC— placing all financial responsibility on the hospital
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More than 17,000 lawsuits are related to PIs annually— making it the second most common claim with the awards up to $312 million
Cognito Health is Leading the Way to Pressure Injury Prevention
The Joint Commission recommends the following actions to help health care organizations prevent pressure injuries:
The Joint Commission Recommendation
How Cognito Health Helps
Assessment: A comprehensive skin assessment can lead to proper identification and early prevention.
There are a variety of tools available for assessment, such as the Braden Scale, PUSH tool, Norton Scale and others. [Learn More]
Education: Consider educating the patient and family about what the device is, where it is located, why it is there, how it functions, and how long it will stay in place. Awareness is key.
Positioning: Position and reposition the patient and the device to help redistribute pressure and decrease shear force.
The Cognito Health KPI dashboard allows caregivers to review patient's pressure profile and identify areas of the body with sustained pressure over time. Repositioning alerts can be customized to individual patient need.
Device care: Ensure that the patient receives the proper size and type of medical device and that it is installed correctly.
Medical device related pressure injuries now account for 30% of hospital acquired pressure injuries. [Learn More]
Documentation and communication: Ensure that the patient’s assessment, interventions and continuing care needs are passed from one caregiver to the next.
The Cognito system can give your team visibility to patient specific patient alerts and movement history. Our mobile alerts ensure team members receive patient risk notifications regardless of where they are within the unit
or facility.
Teamwork: Pressure injury prevention requires activities and coordination among many individuals, including the multiple disciplines and many teams involved in developing and implementing the patient’s care plan.
Multiple care providers can be assigned a single patient so a backup can be notified of urgent care notifications.
Continuous monitoring: Observe baseline and progression or healing over time. Pressure injuries are painful, and patients are suffering more than health care providers know.
Cognito provides 24/7 contact-free patient monitoring and alerts. Our system monitors patient movement and resets the timer if patient has significantly repositioned on
their own—avoiding unnecessary and
risky repositioning.
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Regular Repositioning Can Help Reduce the Incidence of Pressure Injuries*
The Cognito Health system uses advanced algorithms to monitor, track and notify team members when it is time to reposition patients— reducing the risk of costly and deadly pressure injuries.
Our key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard provides management reporting and patient-specific data by unit and by facility to help create individualized care plans, improve staff and enterprise efficiency and drive better purchasing decisions.