Medstrom selected as the central data co-ordinator for the NHS Improvement National Pressure Ulcer Prevalence Audit
NHS Improvement recently facilitated a national pressure ulcer prevalence audit, the first of its kind across England, which took place from April 24th to May 3rd in 14 Trusts.
As a leading provider of bed management services to the NHS, so having significant experience in conducting audits of this nature, Medstrom were selected to be the central data coordinator and processor for the audit. Indeed, our expertise is such that we were selected to support the first ever national pressure ulcer prevalence audit, completed by NHS Wales in 2015.
For the English audit, data was inputted by the teams on the ground into iPads which sent the data straight back to Medstrom HQ where it was analysed and presented at record-breaking speed. This gave Jacqui Fletcher from NHS Improvement, who was based at Medstrom HQ for the duration of the audit, real-time visability of national prevalence results.
In addition to co-ordinating the collation and analysis of data, Medstrom provided staff members to support the clinical teams in each of the 14 Trusts by inputting the prevalence data, which was a combination of data collated from patient records together with the results of skin checks on each patient.
EPUAP guidelines1 recommend that a rigorous pressure ulcer prevalence audit should include skin inspections to categorise pressure ulcers. Although a labour and time-intensive methodology, checking the skin of every patient during an audit is fundamental to capturing accurate, rich and conclusive data. The benefits of this approach compared to only checking patient records versus Datix data can be seen by looking at some of the early findings tweeted by Jacqui on day one of the audit:
This approach of checking patients’ skin is fundamental to the way Medstrom conduct pressure ulcer prevalence audits.
Available to both existing and new NHS customers, our service includes:
- The management of the entire process by Medstrom’s highly experienced team
- Support for clinical teams from our team of NMC-registered clinical nurse advisors
- Questions that are fully customisable to customer requirements
- Data captured via iPad, enabling rapid data analysis
- Analysed and presentation of results within five working days of the audit
Contact us today to discuss how our audit management expertise can benefit your institution.
