A new and exciting development - international guidelines for the prevention and management of pressure ulcers - read on for more information
Clinical practice guidelines are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. Guidelines have become increasingly popular in response to concerns regarding wide variations in health care as well as the fact that much of this care is of poor quality. A well-designed guideline can serve as an authoritative statement about best practices for providers and patients, an important educational tool, and as a benchmark for use in assessing care.
There is a pressing need for guidelines in pressure ulcer prevention and care. Considerable uncertainty exists among practitioners regarding best practices and a thorough literature review for guidelines has not been done in over a decade. Additionally, there have been considerable advances in pressure ulcer prevention and care over the past decade. These include new technologies such as pressure mapping, new techniques for reducing pressure, adjunctive therapies such as negative-pressure wound therapy, new dressings, and additional topical and systematic medications including wound growth factors. These new therapies lead to further uncertainty among clinicians regarding best practices
Current guidelines do not fill this need. The only guidelines of national stature in the USA were published by the then Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research (AHCPR) in 1992 and 1994. The European guidelines were published by the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (EPUAP) in 1998 and 1999. All these guidelines, in part, are now clearly outdated. Despite the fact that the management of pressure ulcers is clearly an international issue, and much relevant research appears in the non-English literature, an international guideline does not exist.