Here are resources that can help you in your busy clinical practice by giving you information quickly.
New guidelines for managing diabetic foot ulcers
The International Affairs & Best Practice Guidelines has released “Assessment and Management of Foot Ulcers for People with Diabetes, Second Edition,” published by the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario.
The guidelines include recommendations for practice, education, policy, and future resource. Strategies for implementation are given, as well as several useful appendices, such as:
• Debridement Decision-Making Algorithm
• A Guide to Dressing Foot Wounds
• PEDIS: Diabetes Foot Ulcer Classification System
• Offloading Devices
• Optimal Treatment Modalities.
The guidelines also recommend that clinicians refer to “Toolkit: Implementation of Best Practice Guidelines, Second Edition.”
PREPARE for complex medical decisions
PREPARE is a useful and patient-friendly website designed to help prepare people to make complex medical decisions. The website was developed by clinical researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center; the University of California, San Francisco; and NCIRE—The Veterans Health Research Institute.
PREPARE uses videos to provide concrete examples of how to identify what is most important in life; how to communicate that with family, friends, and doctors; and how to make informed medical decisions when the time comes. Users can also download a PDF of a PREPARE pamphlet.
Free guides for infection prevention from APIC
Download two free implementation guides for infection prevention from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC):
2013 Guide to Preventing Clostridium difficile Infections
This revised guide contains strategies for prevention, considerations for specific patient populations, evolving practices, and how to incorporate current regulations.
Topics include:
• C. difficile in pediatrics and skilled nursing facilities
• pathogenesis and changing epidemiology of C. difficile infection diagnosis
• environmental control
• new and emerging technologies
• tools and examples to help apply preventative measures, such as hand hygiene monitoring, environmental cleaning, and isolation compliance.
2013 Guide to Infection Prevention in Emergency Medical Services
This guide includes infection-prevention standards, regulations, and best practices, as well as instructions, examples, and tools to conduct surveillance and risk assessments.
Making health care safer
“Making Health Care Safer II: An Updated Critical Analysis of the Evidence for Patient Safety Practices,” from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, covers several topics of interest, such as preventing in-facility pressure ulcers, promoting a culture of safety, and human factors and ergonomics. The report lists 22 patient-safety strategies that are ready for adoption. You can access more information about these strategies, read a related special supplement from the Annals of Internal Medicine, and read a thoughtful commentary about the report, “Treat the system, not the error: Patient safety in 2013.”
