Advancing Pressure Ulcer Prevention and Therapy: From Clinical Burden to Strategic Priorities
Summary: An editorial by Beáta Grešš Halász and Andrea Pokorná, published in the Journal of Wound Management (Vol. 26, No. 2, 2025), highlights the ongoing clinical and economic burden of pressure ulcers and emphasizes the need for coordinated, system-level strategies to improve prevention and treatment outcomes.
Key Highlights:
- Pressure ulcers remain highly prevalent across care settings, causing significant patient suffering, extended hospital stays, and increased healthcare costs.
- Traditional prevention methods—risk assessment, repositioning, support surfaces, moisture management, and nutrition—are necessary but not sufficient when applied in isolation.
- The authors call for integration of pressure ulcer prevention into national and institutional health priorities, with clear policies, adequate resourcing, and leadership engagement.
- Strategic priorities include standardized reporting, workforce training, and ensuring continuity of care for vulnerable populations such as older adults and ICU patients.
- Further research is needed to strengthen implementation science and evaluate system-level interventions in real-world clinical practice.
Read the full article in Journal of Wound Management
Keywords:
pressure ulcer,
pressure injury,
prevention,
quality improvement,
support surfaces,
Beáta Grešš Halász,
Andrea Pokorná