This message was submitted by: "Irene Jankowski" ijankowski@chpnet.org
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Hello, I wanted to let my WOCN colleagues know that I was selected as the first Joint Commission Resources (JCR) Nurse Safety Scholar. I'll be working with JCR on a pressure ulcer prevention project that will focus on bedside implementation. I know that we all have been working on the issue for many years, but the CMS change is opening up new doors for support and money, so I see this as a great opportunity for all of us to gain some valuable access to resources.

I will be asking questions through a blog that they have set up on their website - primarily I am interested in the barriers to prevention program implementation that you are dealing with every day. I've been a WOCN since 1988 and think I know what most of the barriers are but need your verification, support, blessings, and expert input. You can find the blog on the Joint Commission Resources website http://www.jcrinc.com under the Nurse Scholar section.

Hope it was ok for me to send this message on the WOCN forum. Thanks, Irene

Went to the site and this is what you will find

Betty

http://www.jcrinc.com/JCR-Hill-Rom-Nurse-Scholar

Home   Quality and Safety Risk Areas   Patient Safety   JCR Hill-Rom Nurse Scholar

More information:

• Scholar Milestones
• Read Irene Jankowski's Biography
• Irene's Blog
• Nurses Week

Nurse Safety
Scholar-in-Residence
Program Focuses
on Skin Integrity and
Prevention of Pressure Ulcers

Congratulations to nurse practitioner Irene M. Jankowski of Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY, who has been named the first Nurse Safety Scholar-in-Residence.

Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) and Hill-Rom have created the Nurse Safety Scholar-in-Residence Program to translate safe patient care from evidence to the bedside. The initial emphasis of this unique partnership is to develop tools and best practices to maintain skin integrity and prevent pressure ulcers; an estimated 2.5 million patients are treated for pressure ulcers in acute care facilities in the United States each year, according to studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2003 and 2006.More recently, a December 2008 report by the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) states that in 2006 there were 503,000 hospital stays with pressure ulcers noted as a diagnosis, nearly an 80% increase since 1993

The program aims to foster the professional development of expert nurse clinicians and scholars to become translators of evidence into practice, and to identify best practice processes and technology associated with providing safe care for specific clinical problems. The outcomes from this project will contribute to knowledge related to minimizing and preventing harm to patients. A multi-site hospital collaborative project will be established to assist with meeting these aims.

Follow Ms. Jankowski as she chronicles her successes and challenges throughout the scholarship year on her blog.