Pressure Ulcers

Summary

More than 2.5 million people develop pressure ulcers annually in health care settings and at home. Among Medicare patients, between 8 and 28 percent of all documented hospital-acquired conditions are pressure ulcers.

Goal: The Partnership for Patients estimates that 50 percent of the most dangerous pressure ulcers that occur in acute-care settings are preventable. The goal set for hospitals is to reduce these preventable hospital-acquired pressure ulcers by 50 percent by 2013. In three years this would prevent nearly 110,000 pressure ulcers.