Clinical Nurse Specialist–Facilitated Collaborative Skin Assessments for Respiratory Care Devices

Conclusions: Respiratory therapists and nurses should partner to perform skin assessments under respiratory devices each shift and develop a plan of care to prevent skin injury. Protocol orders to prevent and treat skin alterations found under respiratory care devices and a dedicated area in the medical record to document skin assessments may be helpful to support efforts to prevent injuries. Additionally, as a result of these efforts, pressure injuries specific to endotracheal tubes declined greater than 50% in 2 critical care units in the year following this quality improvement project.
Source: Clinical Nurse Specialist - Category: Nursing Tags: Feature Article Source Type: research