to prevent a big friction blister.
Keep your guard up
Because there's a lag from the time the pressure is applied until the
time the skin breaks down, nobody thinks about that the pressure
injury is from the surgery. It's often hard to link the injury in your
mind to something that happens hours before seeing it. Don't fall into
the trap of thinking that your surgeries aren't long enough to use
these kinds of safeguards. In the right set of circumstances, a pressure
injury can happen in a couple of hours, and you can go a long way
toward preventing them.
OSM
J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 3
Dr. Black (jblack@unmc.edu) is a professor at the University of Nebraska
Medical Center in the Adult Health and Illness Department. She is a fellow in the
American Professional Wound Care Association and president of the National
Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.
