 Staff RN at Mount Carmel East (MCE) for 6 years  Completed this research as part of Graduate school requirements

 I am a member of the Skin Wound Assessment Team (SWAT) at MCE  I found that many RNs struggled to stage pressure ulcers correctly  Created the pressure ulcer staging algorithm that could be used by a RN at the bedside

 It has been shown; however, that RN’s do not accurately stage pressure ulcers  Accurate staging of pressure ulcers is important for the care and treatment of pressure ulcers

 Literature regarding staging accuracy and education to improve staging accuracy is limited  Educational programs have been found to improve staging accuracy, but one study showed that the RN’s knowledge returned to baseline 20 weeks after the education

 Copyright for the Pressure Ulcer Staging Algorithm  Mount Carmel IRB approval

 Inpatient units at MCE, MCW, and St Ann’s  Participation voluntary  Nurses were self – identified and randomly assigned by utilizing colored dots

 Nurses were shown 10 digital images of actual pressure ulcers obtained from the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel  Given 1 minute to view the image and stage the ulcer  Were not told the correct answers or the number of stages that they got correct

 All participants were asked to return in 1 month for the post-test  Control group staged the same 10 digital images  Experimental group staged the same 10 digital images by using the Pressure Ulcer Staging Algorithm

 All pre-test and post- test scores were calculated and entered into an SPSS database  41 participants  ANCOVA was applied to the data  Confidence index set at.95 and p=.05

 Control group  Pre-test= 6.35  Post-test=6.65  Experimental group  Pre-test=6.43  Post-test=7.90

 Results suggest that the Pressure Ulcer Staging Algorithm improves the staging accuracy by registered nurses.  Limitations  Small sample  Post-test format

 Designing the study  Recruiting participants  Finding participants to take the post-test

 Questions?????

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