Pressure Injury Prevention Practices in the Intensive Care Unit: Real-world Data Captured by a Wearable Patient Sensor.

BACKGROUND: Compliance with turning protocols in the intensive care unit (ICU) is low; however, little is known about the quality of turning, such as turn angle magnitude or depressurization time. Wearable sensors are now available that provide insight into care practices. OBJECTIVE: This secondary descriptive study describes the turning practices of nurses from 2 ICUs at an academic medical center among consecutive ICU patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A wearable patient sensor was applied to patients on hospital admission. The sensor continuously recorded position data but was not visible to staff. A qualified turn was one that reached > 20° angle and was held for 1 minute after turning. The institution's clinical research repository provided clinical data. RESULTS: A total of 555 patients were analyzed over a 5-month period (September 2015-January 2016); 44 870 hours of monitoring data (x- = 73 hours ± 97/patient) and 27 566 individual turns were recorded. Compliant time was recorded as 54%, with 39% of observed turns reaching the minimum angle threshold and 38% of patients remaining in place for > 15 minutes (depressurization). Turn magnitude was similar for medical and surgical patients. Factors associated with lower compliant time included male sex, high body mass index, and low Braden score. Patients were supine for 72% of the observed time. CONCLUSIONS: The investigators found dynamically measured turning frequency, turn magnitude, and tissue depressurization time to be suboptimal. This study highlights the need to reinforce best practices related to preventive turning and to consider staff and patient factors when developing individualized turn protocols.

Effect of a wearable patient sensor on care delivery for preventing pressure injuries in acutely ill adults: A pragmatic randomized clinical trial (LS-HAPI study).

IMPORTANCE: Though theoretically sound, studies have failed to demonstrate the benefit of routine repositioning of at-risk patients for the prevention of hospital acquired pressure injuries. OBJECTIVE: To assess the clinical effectiveness of a wearable patient sensor to improve care delivery and patient outcomes by increasing the total time with turning compliance and preventing pressure injuries in acutely ill patients. DESIGN: Pragmatic, investigator initiated, open label, single site, randomized clinical trial. SETTING: Two Intensive Care Units in a large Academic Medical Center in California. PARTICIPANTS: Consecutive adult patients admitted to one of two Intensive Care Units between September 2015 to January 2016 were included (n = 1564). Of the eligible patients, 1312 underwent randomization. INTERVENTION: Patients received either turning care relying on traditional turn reminders and standard practices (control group, n = 653), or optimal turning practices, influenced by real-time data derived from a wearable patient sensor (treatment group, n = 659). MAIN OUTCOME(S) AND MEASURE(S): The primary and secondary outcomes of interest were occurrence of hospital acquired pressure injury and turning compliance. Sensitivity analysis was performed to compare intention-to-treat and per-protocol effects. RESULTS: The mean age was 60 years (SD, 17 years); 55% were male. We analyzed 103,000 h of monitoring data. Overall the intervention group had significantly fewer Hospital Acquired Pressure Injuries during Intensive Care Unit admission than the control group (5 patients [0.7%] vs. 15 patients [2.3%] (OR = 0.33, 95%CI [0.12, 0.90], p = 0.031). The total time with turning compliance was significantly different in the intervention group vs. control group (67% vs 54%; difference 0.11, 95%CI [0.08, 0.13], p < 0.001). Turning magnitude (21°, p = 0.923) and adequate depressurization time (39%, p = 0.145) were not statistically different between groups. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Among acutely ill adult patients requiring Intensive Care Unit admission, the provision of optimal turning was greater with a wearable patient sensor, increasing the total time with turning compliance and demonstrated a statistically significant protective effect against the development of hospital acquired pressure injuries. These are the first quantitative data on turn quality in the Intensive Care Unit and highlight the need to reinforce optimal turning practices. Additional clinical trials leveraging technologies like wearable sensors are needed to establish the appropriate frequency and dosing of individualized turning protocols to prevent pressure injuries in at-risk hospitalized patients.