FROM PRESSURE TO PROGRESS: LEVERAGING TEAMWORK, COLLABORATION & DATA TO PREVENT HOSPITAL ACQUIRED PRESSURE INJURIES IN ONCOLOGY UNITS.

Significance & Background: Hospital acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) are costly adverse events across all health care settings. The Hospital-Acquired Conditions Initiative, developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), focused on value-based purchasing. Within this initiative, HAPIs are...

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Published in:Oncology Nursing Forum Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 301 - 303
Main Authors: Smith, Mary, Stewart, Dyann, Best, Robbie
Format: Journal Article
Published: Oncology Nursing Society Mar2026
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar2026
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      pub: Oncology Nursing Society
      place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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        atl: FROM PRESSURE TO PROGRESS: LEVERAGING TEAMWORK, COLLABORATION & DATA TO PREVENT HOSPITAL ACQUIRED PRESSURE INJURIES IN ONCOLOGY UNITS.
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          Smith, Mary
          Stewart, Dyann
          Best, Robbie
        affil: MSN, RN, CNL, CMSRN, MD Anderson, Houston, TX
      sug:
      ab: Significance & Background: Hospital acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) are costly adverse events across all health care settings. The Hospital-Acquired Conditions Initiative, developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS), focused on value-based purchasing. Within this initiative, HAPIs are one of the com-plications referred to as "never events," leading CMS to increase the number of non-payment cases related to this preventable harm. Multidisciplinary teams led by front line nursing have demonstrated improved outcomes through implementation of evidence-based practice prevention techniques and sustainability of best practices. Purpose: The multidisciplinary Institutional Skin Integrity Team (ISIT) aimed to decrease hospital acquired pressure injuries within a high-risk population of oncology patients by greater than twenty percent in a one-year period and sustain those outcomes over subsequent years. Interventions: HAPI reduction initiatives are driven by ISIT, a nurse- led, interdisciplinary body, essential to advancing evidence-based practice and sustained change. ISIT oversaw multiple specialized subcommittees, including the HAPI Quality Pact, Wound Ostomy Nurse Team, ICU Deep Tissue Injury Task Force, Medical Device-Related Injury Prevention Group, and Provider Documentation Workgroup. Each subcommittee focused on targeted aspects of pressure injury prevention and quality improvement. This multidisciplinary initiative engaged subject matter experts across all organizational levels--from frontline clinicians to executive leadership--leveraging evidence-based strategies to identify risk factors, implement tailored interventions, and monitor clinical outcomes. Results: The interdisciplinary team successfully engaged every unit within the hospital to deploy multiple tools and prevention techniques that drove the success of the quality improvement project. The ISIT team successfully reduced hospital-acquired pressure injuries by an impressive 87% over five fiscal years. During fiscal year 2025, the hospital surpassed its performance goals with a greater than 20% reduction in pressure injuries. The Serious Safety Event for pressure injury decreased by greater than the 14% reduction goal. Discussion: Through collaborative, data-driven strategies, the team successfully reduced skin injuries in hospitalized oncology patients. Utilization of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver effective communication across all disciplines and departments, improvements and evidence-based care consistently shared throughout the hospital system by the HAPI committee and ISIT team, leading to sustainable, high-quality outcomes. Oncology populations across all systems may benefit from a similar methodology.
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      doctype: Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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