Landspitali - University Hospital
Incident recording and quality issues
Incidents and safety cross
Most pressure injuries are preventable and therefore it is a deviation from treatment if a patient develops a pressure injury. Healthcare professionals should record pressure injuries as incidents.
The safety cross is a good tool for keeping track of pressure injury incidents that occur on a ward and should be part of the ward improvement chart. The safety cross contains one field for each day of the month. Each day, the previous day of the month is colored green if no new pressure injuries occurred on that day on the ward, but the field is marked red if a new pressure injury occurred on the ward.
See more about using the safety cross in the quality document LSH-1111.
Documentation Related to Pressure Injury Prevention
Guidelines for documentation related to pressure injury prevention at Landspítali can be found in the quality document LSH-435.
Quality Standard
At Landspítali, there is a quality standard for pressure injuries. Its overarching goals are:
To achieve a new incidence of pressure injuries at Landspítali close to 0%.
To ensure documentation is in accordance with quality documents.
To ensure that all patients receive appropriate pressure injury prevention equipment when necessary.
To ensure that pressure injury prevention equipment is in good condition, checked, clean, and accessible when needed.
To work according to the HAMUR protocol for patients at risk in all departments of Landspítali.
To perform skin assessments at admission, during transfers between departments, and twice daily for at-risk patients.
To ensure staff receive appropriate training and education regarding the implementation of the HAMUR protocol and improved documentation.
To ensure all patients are assessed for risk at admission and weekly thereafter or sooner if their condition changes.
To ensure that all pressure injuries that occur at Landspítali are incident reported, reviewed, and corrective actions taken.
To document in the patient record whether patients have pressure injuries upon admission.