Nursing initiative at KEMH in the spotlight at international conference

Friday 9 December 2022: A procedure developed by Bermuda Hospitals Board nurses was presented at the British Geriatrics Society Autumn Conference on 17 November. It will be published in the Society’s Age and Ageing Journal in a few months.

The abstract, ‘A Novel Pressure Injury Care Bundle for Dependent Patients with Pressure Injuries in Bermuda’, details a nurse-driven initiative of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital’s Gordon Long Term Care Unit. It was presented by the unit’s quality and safety team, including registered nurses Girlie Baldonado, Jerry De La Cruz, Bernadette Diaz and Bernadine Edwards, Long Term Care Clinical Educator Katrina Drummond, and Gordon Unit Clinical Manager Maxine Simmons.

“Our unit-based quality and safety team – all nurses – developed a procedure to help us better manage pressure injuries and prevent our patients developing them,” said Ms Simmons. “These are wounds that occur on the skin as a result of sustained pressure. When pressure cuts off the oxygen supply to a particular area, an ulcer or wound can appear.

“Long-term care residents, especially those who are confined to bed, are more susceptible to developing pressure injuries.”

The goal of the initiative is to address severe pressure injury cases in patients who are transferred into long-term care. The team created and implemented a specific set of actions which augments the existing pressure injury management care pathway.

Nurse Jerry De La Cruz spoke at the virtual conference, which included more than 700 professionals in the field of geriatrics from around the world. His video presentation detailed the project and documented how the majority of pressure injuries, even in severe cases, healed significantly. The wounds healed completely in half of the cases.

“We looked at 30 patients who were admitted to the unit in this study,” said Mr De La Cruz.

“The results of introducing this pressure injury bundle have been very encouraging for all of us carers on the unit,” said Ms Simmons. “We worked hard looking at actions we felt would address the problem, and I can’t describe the gratification in seeing that it has worked.”

Chief of Nursing Judy Richardson said: “Providing patient-centred care, where we focus on the needs of the patient first, is a BHB value which our Gordon Unit nurses exemplified when they developed this care plan. BHB is proud of their work. The British Geriatrics Society publishing it in their journal gives international recognition of its importance.”