Pressure ulcers are a significant problem in long-term health care. Estimates of prevalence in the long-term and extended care environments cluster around 8 percent and appear stable over the past decade. Yet it has been forcefully argued that pressure ulcers are largely preventable regardless of a patient's Braden Risk profile when proper precautionary standards of practice are followed. While reduction to zero may be unrealistic, especially in the near-term as a result of institutional, systemic, and individual factors endemic to the U.S. health care system, nonetheless a reduction from the present rates of incidence is feasible and would yield human and financial savings through diminution of patient sequelae and co-morbidity. The Academic Edge, Inc. (AEI) proposes to develop a suite of educational materials to address the two-fold need identified above: prevention and treatment. These are to be delivered via a """"""""pressure ulcer portal"""""""" located on the World Wide Web as well as other media. The materials will be interactive, accurate, effective, and extensible. The site will address pressure ulcers in terms of both prevention and treatment and wilt be tailored for health care professionals. In Phase I, AEI will: 1) demonstrate the feasibility of developing the pressure ulcer media and portal, and 2) demonstrate the effort's capacity to educate users regarding pressure ulcer prevention, diagnosis and intervention resources with the ultimate goal of improving healthcare professionals' prevention and treatment skills. Specifically, the prototype site will present risk factor and prevention resources, and treatment resources. Phase I treatment focus will be on wound assessment skills and will be targeted to visiting nurses and home healthcare workers. Four specific activities will be completed during the Phase I project: 1) Identify the specific content, its organization and presentation, and develop a Design Requirements Document, in conjunction with - and validated by - our Advisory Board (Drs. Black, Olshansky, Fishman, and Herman). 2) Complete a needs assessment through a retrospective content analysis of email traffic at www.medicaledu.com for the purposes of verifying the content requirements for the final product development to be accomplished in Phase II. 3) Develop the prototype site according to the Design Requirements Document, and build the site according to specifications. 4) Validate the prototype through a subject matter expert review, an end-user focus group review, and a quantitative and usability evaluation of the interactive skills exercises and the site prototype.
